Ghost in the Evangelion
by LatwPIAT
Summary: Crossover between Ghost in the Shell and Neon Genesis Evangelion, placing NERV and the Angels inside post-cyberpunk Japan in 2030. Verbose technothriller.
1. Layer 01: RAKBU ATTACK Unnatural Night

**The Ghost of Evangelion – Layer 01  
A Neon Genesis Evangelion/Ghost in the Shell crossover**

**AD 2030, Present day, present time**

There was a tense silence in the air all over Odawara District, broken only by the humming of Jigabachi attack helicopters. Old, black, charred buildings poked crookedly out of greenish-brown water, a testament to long-dead engineers and architects. The lower districts of Odawara had once been populated, but the shifting seas has flooded the streets and displaced the citizens, spreading the urban sprawl towards Manazuru and Yugawara, almost touching to create a continuous urban wall stretching from Wakayama to Chiba, against the advancing waves of the Pacific Sea.

And in this sea, swam the messenger of an ancient civilization, all but forgotten since man had left the cradle of civilization; man cannot, after all, stay in the cradle forever.

This ancient god, the Rakbu, drifted further into the sunken city and set foot in the abandoned streets. It began its stride up, rising shoulder-first between the black skyscrapers. A Jigabachi hovered at the other end of the street, capturing the rising creature in all its horror; 40 meters tall, humanoid and black with a single white bird-like skull.

"OK, Sergeant," the helicopter-pilot heard in his audio implants "Pull out; we've got confirmation from ECCO; it's a match,"

The helicopter pilot, Kentarou Hayashida, pulled his Jigabachi out of the venetian streets and back towards the "Pacific Wall," a joint Japanese/US defensive line of rowed and columned Type 10 tanks brandishing 120mm high-velocity cannons, backed by brand new EW204 Multi-ped Tanks and lines of Type 21 Howitzers. The seas were patrolled by a mix of Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyers and a US Carrier Group conveniently stationed in Yokosuka, Kanegawa.

* * *

_Damn it!_ Misato thought. _How could I miss him _now_ of all days?_ She bit her lip and peered over the shoulder of the Operator android piloting the Botanachi DLCH tilt-rotor. She kept on making these stupid mistakes in front of JGSDF, who'd stood there waiting, with her _own car already warm_ by the time she had found a clean dress. She looked over at the Special Forces-detachment she was working with; their commander, a female full-conversion cyborg, was loading her Seburo C25A.

"You can relax Major," Misato yelled over the thundering twin rotors "there won't be anyone to shoot at; it's only a pickup!"

"You never know…" Major Motoko Kusanagi replied. 'Overkill' decided Misato was the best work to describe the woman; half a platoon of heavily armed soldiers and a small one-man tank, all for a job Misato could have done alone with only her car – less intimidating that way, too.

* * *

"Today, a special state of emergency has been declared," the speakers sounded over Ashigrashimo: "throughout the Kanto and Chubu districts around the Tokai Area. Please take refuge in your designated shelter."

A teenager, dressed in a plain school uniform, sighed loudly to nobody in the abandoned streets outside Odawara Central Station. He's just travelled 8 hours by train, travelling the on both the Sanyo and Tokaido Shinkansen, because his father was too much of a bastard to pay for a plane ticket; Shinji was dead tired, and it was raining. He looked down at the picture of Ms Katsuragi; it was a picture of her, showing a V-sign with her hand and smiling at the camera in a very loose t-shirt and no bra; not hard to tell, considering she was leaning sharply forwards, giving Shinji an appealing view of her cleavage. The arrow labeled 'look here' helped. Still, who gave away pictures like that?

Shinji stuck the picture back in his pocket to protect it from the rain; the edges were well worn already and for some inexplicable reason he'd like to keep that picture. It was certainly a lot better than anything else he had been given; transfer papers (written by an android and signed by his father) and a note that said 'come,' the epitome of his father laconic writing, like those hastily written birthday cards that had stopped arriving in the mail many years ago; the entirety of his father correspondence with him could fit inside a thin envelope. Not that Shinji had tried.

Yet, it was from his father, asking him to come.

Shinji thought that he'd been alone on the streets, but in the distance, partly obscured by heavy rain, he could see a pale, blue haired girl; actual, faded blue hair, not electric blue like cyborgs had. _What's she doing here, in the rain?_ A gust of wind threw water in Shinji's eyes. When he opened them, the girl was gone – disappeared – with no trace of where she had left to. _What am _I_ doing here? It's raining._ Shinji reminded himself.

The thundering sound of a helicopter entered Shinji's ears; it was flying overhead at an atrocious height, throwing old newspapers and tissue papers around. It landed almost on top of Shinji, facing away from him. The heavy downwind almost threw Shinj off his legs, and he had to swat a newspaper out of his face. The rear hatch of the tilt-rotor folded down, and a woman in a short black dress jumped out, backlit by a pair of headlights.

"Shinji Ikari! the woman yelled and waved "Sorry to keep you waiting!" The tilt-rotor downwind rippled through her tight, clinging dress, though Shinji didn't notice that. Honestly.

The woman, who could only be Misato Katsuragi, was flanked by another woman; a military full-conversion Megatech cyborg with a plain (by modern standards, anyway) face Shinji had seen thousands of times before framed by purple hair, and standing next to Misato Katsuragi didn't help, even if both were wearing formfitting clothes. Shinji boarded the tilt-rotor.

"See?" Misato said to the purple-haired woman once they got inside "It went by smoothly. You didn't need the tank,"

An explosion shattered nearby windows, as if to prove Misato wrong. Shinji turned to face the mirrored façade falling to pieces. The purple-haired woman pushed him further into the tilt-rotor behind a small military Spider Tank facing out the rear hatch.

"Take us out of here!" she yelled. As the tilt-rotor rose above the skyscrapers, Shinji caught a glimpse of a black giant illuminated by explosions scattering against a snow crash. Another bright fire backlighted the impossible giant; something that big shouldn't exist, yet it did, so it must be real.

* * *

The sky lit up in a reddish hue once more. Another round of High-Explosive Anti-Tank missiles slammed into the Rakbu's face.

"HEAT-shells have no effect on the target!" Taku Tanikawa, a VTOL gunner, reported over the radio.

The slaved Jigabachis kept firing. Giant, grey wasps, each Jigabachi was part of an AI-controlled hive mind, both a genius and an idiot at the same time; they didn't have any concept of "nothing could survive that;" the enemy was either destroyed, or it wasn't; there was no room for probably. Their meter-long stingers kept firing, releasing a thick beam of 7.62mm bullets onto the pillar of smoke.

The smoke cleared, revealing that as each 7.62 NATO bullet hit, the air flickered like TV noise with the appropriate sound, scattering a pattern of static all over the Rakbu as rotary guns swept over it. The Rabku itself was unharmed; not even a scratch. To it, the Jigabachi were nothing more than bothersome wasps, and it went fly-swatting.

Taku Tanikawa's body was vaporized by a blooming purple bar of light. His Jigabachi was burnt to nothingness, fried by the photons. Rainwater steamed off the beam of light, misting up around the Rakbu. Metal shards dropped into the harbor, glowing white-hot and steaming.

"Get us out of here!" captain Katsuragi yelled. The Jigabachi and the Botanachi were somewhat similar, and she'd rather their fates didn't end up resembling each other. She looked over at Shinji, who was staring terrified out a window at the monstrosity. She – humanity – couldn't afford to lose him. She bit her lip and stared out the closing rear hatch while darkness turned to light and hell was unleashed.

Hell was an inferno. In a desperate last attempt to stop the Rakbu, the JASDF had tried to overwhelm the Rakbu by unleashing all remaining firepower at the Rakbu simultaneously. The Jigabachis fired their 105mm rifled cannons. Loud cracks sounded to the air, and any windows not already broken splintered and shattered from the shockwave of cannons firing.

There were no moments of silence, for as soon as the limited supply of 105mm shells was squandered, they'd unleash a barrage of all their remaining ATGMs, resulting in a sound much like celebrating with fireworks inside a metal barrel. Once the Rakbu was surrounded in a literal firewall, the whirring motor sound of spinning barrels, followed by the loud, saw-like sound of 3,000 rounds per minute cracking through the sound barrier, each crack before the old had gone quiet, like the Devil's own electric razor running along the flesh of the innocent.

* * *

Along the highway connecting Tokyo and Hakone, Japanese–owned M270 MLRS, loaded in all 12 tubes with solid fuel rockets, received orders from the JGSDF. Go-codes were given and barrages were greenlit. The M270 crews had already aimed and calibrated their guns to hit the Rakbu in centre of mass, and began firing immediately. Supporting them were division of heavy armor; Type 10 tanks and EW204 multi-peds fired their 120mm main cannons, supported by a hailstorm of 7.62x51 mm rounds. Suddenly, the Rakbu was covered in a burning firewall of artillery explosives and tank shells. A purple beam burst from the flames, vaporizing a platoon of tanks at once. Another beam burst forth and turned a column of EW204s to ashes. Faced with the gunboat diplomacy of this giant, the Blefuscu could only watch in despair.

* * *

There was a tense silence in the CIC-room provided by ECCO. The holographic map and the wall-sized projector screen only served to emphasize exactly how outgunned the JGSDF was. The JGSDF Chief of Staff Ground, Kii Kawamoto, looked over his folded hands as his forces were driven further and further back. JASDF jet fighters and US Navy fighter-bombers from the USS _Philip Mead_ would cover the Rakbu in smoke and explosions, and they would fade only to reveal the black giant still standing – walking even – unfrazzled towards Yugawara.

In the uncomfortable moments that passed, only three men remained calm; the first two were Koto Fuyutsuki and Gendo Ikari:

"As we expected, it is protected by an A.T. Field," the old greying Deputy Commander said, a little too loudly

"Yes," his old student concurred "Conventional weapons will not harm it,"

The third was Daisuke Aramaki, an old man who'd never learnt when to quit playing with soldiers and battleships. He was at least as old as the Chief of Staff, Ground and losing his hair, letting the remaining whitish-grey strands hang down the back of his simian face, as off-colour as his worn, once navy-blue suit. He turned to Gen. Kawamoto

"Are you really this stupid?" he asked; Daisuke Aramaki was a shrewd man.

General Kawamoto stared down at the old man who had, quite rudely, interrupted his command of Operation Hashidate.

"Explain." he demanded.

"General Kawamoto, your aerial and ground forces have tried to engage the target without success. Right now it's advancing on the city. You need to slow it down to buy more time to find an effective solution. You must find some way to slow it down, and you might just get the time you need to find a way to destroy it," Aramaki continued.

Kawamoto paused for a moment – the old man was _right,_ after all – they needed to buy more time, and Kawamot knew just the person for the job. He turned to an android secretary to open a line for him.

* * *

Cpt. Eiri commanded a small detachment of forces – an artillery battery, comprised mostly of old Type 96 Howtizers, supported by a platoon of mechanized infantry. His role during Operation Hashidate had been to provide fire support against the Rakbu by lobbing – to no avail – 155mm shells at it. Other than the Howitzers, the heaviest weapon around was the Sumitomo Type 18 7.62 mm Machine Gun, which had rather poor penetrative power when compared to the Type 96. He looked the Rakbu through his binoculars. Occasionally a barrage of time-on-target fire would approach Isimud. The shells would slam into a snow crash, hanging, bouncing, deflecting – The Rakbu was an implacable wall of walking destruction.

And Eiri had been given orders to take it down with what amounted to a fancy popgun.

Which was why he wasn't even going to aim at it.

Isimud took a step. There was a single loud 'crack' as 12 howitzers fired; their shells sailed through the air – a flotilla of 600 kg of steel - and struck the ground before the awakening alien god's feet. The asphalt was ripped to pieces. Flakes tore off and embedded themselves in old, abandoned buildings. Sand and soil scattered in all directions, leaving a giant hole in the ground. Isimud completed the step, found the ground no longer there, and became a victim of gravity. It fell.

For good measure, the howitzers cracked again.

* * *

A single B52, courtesy of the Japanese/American Defence Treaty, which actually did count in the case of alien invasion, flew towards a clearing among the ruins of old Odawara, guided both by GPS map and by a laser painted on the Rakbu by a JGSDF Forward Air Controller. The continued white noise and electric sparks that filled the air as artillery barrage met AT field made dropping the 20kt, laser guided, non-nuclear cruise missile considerably easier, even in the dark.

The CIC was bathed in white light as UAVs transmitted images of a detonating bomb. The non-nuclear bomb had been designed to wipe forests off the map. It carried nearly two tons of liquid ethylene oxide with evenly distributed aluminium nanoparticles, spread around by powerful magnetic fields in cyclotrons. The resulting explosion would cover an area over 3 kilometers in radius. The overpressure caused by the explosion could crush a human skull into itself and shatter buildings instantaneously, like matchstick houses in a hurricane. Then, like a matches, everything inside the blast radius would spontaneously self-ignite from the extreme heat; the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. All of this would have happened after the bomb had sucked in every living being within a reasonable distance outside the blast radius, like a black hole on fire.

Ground zero had been wiped. There was nothing left. It was a gaping black crater surrounded by collapsing structures again surrounded by black monoliths (themselves previously nuked) covered in thick layers of old and new ashes, broken and deteriorating. A cloud of concrete dust swept through the ghost city, rolling over buildings and through the broken windows, shattered all at once so many years ago. A bright fireball rose upwards in an incandescent red glow and melted the asphalt on its way up. The old city had been toasted, leaving only the smell of oxides at noon: Victory.

Then a living shadow rose from the ground.

* * *

The Botanachi tilt-rotor flew into the crater that hollowed out the south-eastern part of Ashigarashimo District – there was an artificial island in the very middle, with a single bridge connecting it to the mainland. The island was almost flat now, rather than a towering Gaussian curve made from skyscrapers defying gravity, tectonic plates and common sense.

"What is ECCO?" Shinji asked Misato, breaking the monotone silence of thundering rotors.

"The Earth Coincidence Control Centre is a defence contractor for the JGSDF – we provide the JGSDF with the weapons and personnel to defeat monsters like that," Misato answered, pointing in the direction of the one-sided battle.

"You don't seem to being a very good job!" Shinji blurted out. He got a sharp stare in return.

* * *

Gendo Ikari faced a panel of Japanese Self-Defence Generals, himself backlit by the hideous Rakbu, its bird-like head wrung and crooked, revealing another skull. The generals, hard-faced old men still trying to fight the last war against enemies so ancient that nothing recognizable as a man had even seen them before; this was not a war won by an army; this war would be won by the born-again epic hero, and only he, Gendo Ikari, knew how the story went.

"You're now in command of the operation. We'll see how you deal with it," Kawamoto said. The implications of the latter sentence hanging in the air like thick cigarette smoke hangs in a closed room in a black-and-white film.

"Yes sir," Ikari said with a solemn face. In his mind, he smirked – he had proven to them, although it was as much their doing as his, that the JGSDF was useless against the Rakbu; he could expect their full, if reluctant, co-operation, rather than the constant inter-branch infighting between two groups thinking they are much better than each other – his metal smirk turned to a mental smile – _Yui._

"Ikari, considering out available weapons… I have to admit we have no effective way to deal with the target. Are you confident you can defeat it?" Kawamoto asked, concerned rather than mockingly.

Gendo Ikari adjusted his glasses. Hyuga, Ibuki and Aoba turned their heads and waiter for his answer. Dozens of eyes rested on him, some real, som artificial; even androids had turned their heads to transcribe him perfectly. A simple "Yes" would not suffice.

"That is why ECCO exists,"

Then, a little later:

"Activate Unit-01"

Tensions rose among the ECCO staff. Fuyutsuki turned to Gendo once the Commander had sat down.

"Unit-01?" Fuyutsuki asked with a hint of surprise; the implication was carried across perfectly.

"A pilot will arrive shortly; he will pilot it," Gendo answered the statement-that-ended-in-a-question-mark. Unseen though his glasses, he looked up at his teacher and, in some sense of the word, friend. He paused, the continued "Have Dr Akagi prepare Unit-00 for deployment; shell only,"

Fuyutsuki smiled for a fraction of a second.

* * *

Had Misato not had a cyberbrain, she would have been overwhelmed by the beehive of passageways that were strewn across the GeoFront; the excavated shafts were hexagonal, but all the rooms had been constructed according to a square grid layout. That is to say, one square grid layout for each of the six walls, built by different engineers under the supervision of different architects with different ideas. Room and corridors met at bizarre sums of 90 and 70 degrees, as if someone had not yet realized they were working with Euclidian dimensions, or for that matter that they were limited to only three of them.

Automaps were a nice feature of both cyberbrains and PDAs, Dr Ritsuko Akagi reflected. Granted, some people, and we're not pointing any fingers here Captain Katsuragi, sometimes managed to get lost even with map software.

Luckily, though Ritsuko, today was not one of _those days_.

It might be attributed to Maj. Kusanagi's presence, but the doctor liked to think the best of her former roommate.

"…and he is the one?" she asked Misato, looking down at the quizzical, unsmiling boy she'd dragged along; there were some overall similarities in the facial structure with Gendo Ikari, but that didn't necessarily mean that it was _Shinji Ikari_, just someone with his Y-chromosome. _As long as it's not any of my X'es…_

"Yes," Misato answered, "according to the Marduk Report, he's the Third Child,"

"So I'm my father's _third_ child?" Shinji spewed with genuine surprise. _Really shouldn't have surprised me. How like my father_ – not that Shinji actually knew him that well. "I didn't know that,"

For a second, an uncomfortable silence filled the corridor.

"Not in that way. Your father would never…" Misato and Ritsuko said at once "It means you're number three on a list of applicants for ECCO," Ritsuko explained.

"Oh, by the way Maj. Kusanagi – are there anyone under your command who are experienced with ICE? I've tried to set up a defensive system but…"

"Well," the Major interrupted ""for a system this large, you'll want to set up a total-barrier with independent reverse probes arrays. However, I'd recommend investing in a hardline to make your main CPU a lead box to prevent infection using independent operators. You'll want to avoid barrier-fusion and polymorphic algorithms..."

Ritsuko heard and ignored the muttered utterance of "…hackers…" that came from her former roommate.

* * *

Ritsuko had brought Shinji, Misato and Maj. Kusanagi up to level B-20 and onto an artificial lake, towered by tall, pressing walls coated in water-proof pain that had occasionally flaked off, revealing rusty metal or grey concrete beneath. The water was clear, and Shinji could see all the way to the bottom; it was at least 20, give or take a few from refraction. Ritsuko steered to boat into a small channel and up to a small port. She tied it to a pier and motioned for her passengers to get out; Misato left first and helped held out a hand to help Shinji. Maj. Kusanagi, about seven times as dense as the equally sized-Cpt. Katsuragi, made sure to leave the boat in a safe manner; she didn't exactly float and her artificial lungs didn't take well to water.

Ritsuko led them through a door into a pitch black room. Shinji could hear the sloshing of small waves and smell the thick smell of chlorine from the water. A single lane was lit by blue cats-eye LEDs in front of Shinji. The door slammed shut, leaving nothing but himself and the badly illuminated trio of women. The darkness was uncomfortable; Shinji felt like he could suddenly step into a deep pool of water with each step he took. He heard the distinct slap of hand against face and turned to see Maj. Kusanagi let out an annoyed grunt.

"What, if I may ask, is that?" she said and pointed into the darkness. Shinji squinted in the direction of her arm, but couldn't see what she was pointing at. Ritsuko smiled and pushed a button on her PDA. The entire room was floodedlighted with bright fluorescent light; like a bleached picture, washing all the colours out.

Shinji faced a gigantic white, inhuman head. It was like a perversion of a samurai helmet, with giant red eyes staring at him from beneath protective plates. He glanced down to see the silhouette of a torso submerged in the greenish water, reaching down from the neck. Shinji knew exactly what he looked at, even though he'd only though they were fictional.

"This, to answer your question…" Ritsuko shouted "is the epitome of cybernetic engineering; the "Evangelion" Type 36 multi-purpose armed suit,"

The Evangelion was as tall as Isimud, 40 meters, 30 of them underwater. It weighted over 400 tons, most of it armor. The visible part of the Evangelion was its shoulders and head, both coloured in thick white paint to prevent corrosion. Under the helmet was an actual lower jaw, seemingly for no particular reason other than to give a monstrous look, as it had obviously been welded shut at some point. There even was a horn.

"…this would be Unit-01, the first combat-ready model, beating the predicted deadline of our European partners by several months,"

"My father built this?" Shinji asked, raising a single eyebrow while staring at the doctor.

"That's right!" a voice said, slightly tinted by the PA system, but clearly an adult male. Shinji didn't recognize the voice, he didn't need too. He knew the laconic way of speaking, he knew the subtle pride, as apparent in real life as on paper, he didn't even need to look up, although he did, to recognize the man standing in front of a massive window overlooking the Eva pen, still unchanged in appearance after 12 years. It was his father.

"Been a while, hasn't it?" the elder Ikari asked the younger.

The bastard, for that was only word Shinji could use in this situation, stared down at him. Shinji had brought many questions he wanted to ask his father, yet he had been afraid of the answers, and unsure which to ask – Why did you leave me, Father? Why didn't you ever visit me, Father? Why didn't we ever talk, Father? – and now he knew which question to ask, and he knew the answer.

And it was terrifying to know.

"Why am I here Father?" Shinji asked "You'd hardly have transferred me across half of Japan, by train in the middle of the night, no less, just so I could go to school here the next day," he dreaded the obvious answer "You want me –" Shinji continued "–to pilot _that_–" he pointed at Unit-01 "–against that thing I saw?"

"Precisely," Gendo replied.

"No way," Shinji said "That's an armed suit. They require training. Training I do not have," and going by the reaction of the purple-haired woman "Training nobody has."

Gendo looked dismissively down on the pilot – his son – before him, catching Shinji in the wall-mounted screens from a variety of angles in the corner of his eye; he could of course verbally push the Third Child until he complied, as usual, but the JGSDF would probably react _very badly_ to say the least, to overt manipulative persuasion of minors, so Gendo Ikari would have to rely on less overt and more uncomfortable (to him as well) techniques of persuasion (which in itself, of course, was a backup plan) Gendo pressed a key.

"Fuyutsuki," he called over a private channel, to a stoic avatar of Fuyutsuki "wake up Rei."

"Why the hell does he have to pilot anyway?" Maj. Kusanagi asked Cpt. Katsuragi "he's a _child_!"

"Adult brains are less receptive to the surgery required;" Ritsuko answered "as the brain ages the neural plasticity is gradually lowered. Attempts at augmenting the neurons with nanite-capsids at a later age will increase the risk of exponential neural hardening…"

"Thank you! That's enough!" Misato yelled. Ritsuko mumbled "I'm sorry," at a just above audible level.

Ritsuko's earpiece beeped – she didn't have a cyberbrain; anyone with enough time and CPU resources could potentially read and control her mind; all her thoughts would become open, and her mind nothing but a complex system open to Class A 'WIZZARD' hackers, cyber-brainwashers, ghost-dubbing devices and dangerous viruses; she felt less… expendable… with a fully organic brain.

"Reconfigure Unit-01's systems for pilot Rei Ayanami! Restart!" she transmitted after playing the message.

Ritsuko walked away before she'd even received a reply. She knew Maya Ibuki well enough know that for all her minor quirks, she'd turned EVA-g2g-compability restarts from a computer science into a near art form. Maya and Ritsuko had spent an entire night in a secluded corner of the computer lab with obscene amounts of caffeine (and in Ritsuko's case, equally obscene amounts of nicotine) and converted the entire program from high-level code into hex, and therefore Maya knew just as well as Ritsuko how to configure Unit-01.

"Yes ma'am!" Maya answered Ritsuko, like a bright sun in the otherwise gloomy room, "I'll restart the loader,"

Maya Ibuki looked at the graphical user interface. It showed a node labeled "UNIT-01," compromised all the way to its ghost-barrier. Adjacent to the node was a list of currently running programs. She hit a few keys to change the criteria so that it would show only non-vital security programs, and quickly moved her mouse over to a drop-down menu with the option: "disable all" and clicked. She could have terminated them all with the command line window, but unlike the GUI it didn't differentiate between vital and non-vital security measures, and she would either have to type in each and every program name, or she would have to restart all the vital processes which would take much too long time. As soon as she'd typed her password to confirm the termination of all the non-vital security measures, she switched to the command line interface:

.cmd/projectg/unit01

end

NEW GHOST CONFIGURATION ENDED. 0 ERRORS.

configure /p

CONFIGURING PROFILE. NO PROFILE FOUND. TO LOAD OLD PROFILE TYPE "LOAD [PROFILE NAME]" TO CREATE NEW PROFILE TYPE "NEW" TO INSTALL A PROFILE DRIVER TYPE "INSTALL [DIRECTORY]" FOR MORE OPTIONS TYPE "HELP"

load "pilots/ayanami"

LOADING PROFILE "AYANAMI"  
PILOT NAME: Ayanami, Rei  
ESTIMATED SYNC RATIO: 54% +/- 09% STANDARD DEVIATION  
LOADING... PLEASE WAIT

_So he had another pilot all along…_ Shinji though. Still, something was amiss – he'd been dragged from Kyosho all the way to Odawara on a day's notice, complete with transfer papers for a new school; he'd been airlifted from the train station by special forces, and yet he was, in one sense of the word, _expendable_, because his father already had someone else to pilot for him. So, in the end, he was losing sleep (how late was it anyways?) for no good reason; another day ruined by his father. Great.

* * *

Rei Ayanami could feel the adrenalin spread around her body, causing her cold, feverish body to shake even more than just minutes before. She could feel her lacerated left arm better now, though it was still numb from her high dose of painkillers. Her right arm was in a cast, and she had no idea if it was broken or a prosthetic. It didn't hurt, unless she moved it, but with her shivering and occasional involuntary trashing, that happened a lot. Breathing hurt, especially the rapid near-hyperventilation caused by the adrenalin cocktail she'd been given. She still had a concussion, so her head constantly hurt, only amplified by the stinging pain in her left eye. It was so tightly bandaged she had no idea whether the eye was just being protected from foreign objects, or actually gone. It mattered little to her now; she couldn't use it anyway. Her broken ribs shifted uncomfortably as the nurse carried her stretcher. She listened to the pneumatic hissing from the nurses' exoskeleton, to take her mind of the pain, a rhythmical air pulse as the nurse walked. Rei could only look into the roof, seeing each overhead lamp pass by, slightly out of focus as her head hurt whenever she tried to focus on anything. She tried as hard as she could not to fall asleep, knowing it would only make her a liability to wake up and make her concussion worse.

* * *

Maj. Kusanagi looked at the new arrival; it was a young blue-haired girl, not exactly surprising at this point, in a white flight suit and covered in bandages. The Major read off her bed's plaque that the girl was currently receiving cybernetic organ-replacements. Her artificial eyebrows furrowed and her lips tightened. She strode over to Cpt. Katsuragi and picked her off the ground.

"Why isn't she in the ICU? You're risking her life!" she demanded.

Misato swallowed and scooted down into the greenish water beneath her. "Uh…" she began "if that Rakbu – that monster – comes too close to the GeoFront, it'll wipe out most of Japan – it'll be like the Impact all over again, but on Earth; we're not…" Misato gasped for breath. The Major faked letting go of Misato and swept her back onto the walkway.

Shinji looked at the blue-haired girl trying to stand up from the bed. She was shaking and grit her teeth in pain. He could hear her heavy breathing, complemented by the hollow sound of lungs with too much liquid in them. She sat, for a while, on the edge of the stretcher, quivering in pain.

"I thought using _me_ was preposterous, yet, Father, you have outdone yourself," Shinji mumbled, mostly to himself. So _this_ was why his father needed him; because the other pilot was half dead – still in her flight suit; she'd been hospitalized recently; pieces started falling together, except that one non-Euclidean one as to why the bastard hadn't simply _told him_ what was going on. Shinji silently cursed a horse-salesman and a tax collector under his breath. "OK, I'll do it. I'll pilot it.

Before anyone could reply, the entire building shook from the force of a concentrated beam of cuneiform light. Cables snapped and the chlorine-heavy water spat him in the face. Light fixtures swung and their fluorescent pipes splintered and sparked. The walkway swung heavily and Shinji lost his balance and almost fell into the water. Major Kusanagi somersaulted off the slanted walkway and stood straight like a nail on its edge before coiling back to prepare for another jump as the walkway slid back into a horizontal position; she'd rather not drown. She heard metal scream and bend as three heavy H-beams fell towards the walkway. Shinji tired to get back onto his legs and away, but 450 kg of person slammed into his stomach. A giant off-white hand reached out from beneath the water like a giant claw ready to crush him. The H-beams bounced off the hand and towards Gendo, but much to the chagrin of Cosmic Justice he was protected by 100 mm of armored plastic. Once Shinji regained his breath, he found himself in Maj. Kusanagi's one-armed bear-hug sprawled on the floor. The other hand carried the blue-haired girl.

Shinji watched in terrified shock as Maj. Kusanagi checked the girl for wounds needing immediate attention. The girl recoiled and coughed hard, covering both Shinji and Kusanagi in mucus and blood. She started screaming and crying in pain. Maj. Kusanagi ignored it and ripped up the girl's jumpsuit to fashion rudimentary bandages; she'd started bleeding from her ribs. Shinji touched his face and found his hand covered in tiny spots of blood. The world went out of focus and he had to genuflect on the walkway, breathing heavily.

"Maya!" Dr Akagi yelled, "Create a new profile for Unit-01,"

* * *

The room around Shinji was another shade of bleak white. Computer terminals stretched from one end of the room to the other and hummed quietly. Coloured ribbons and trails danced around the screens while lines upon lines of text scrolled past on the active computers; the inactive ones just glowed 'Ω'. In a corner, one machine went 'ping!'

"Ready for the second stage of the operation?" Ritsuko asked him, while standing somewhere outside his field of vision.

"You haven't told me what it _is_ yet," Shinji replied. Blood was still creeping down his shirt from the first stage of the operation, and the part with the local anesthetic and the drill which had probably cut into his skull at several places had been terrifying, especially because his head was locked in place by a brace. He felt a prick on the back of his head.

"Ah. I'm injecting several clusters of micromachine B parts into the lateral and posterior aspects of your brain," she answered. "Impelled by Van der Waal's forces seventy percent of the B parts will undergo reversible absorption at the site where we injected the A parts earlier. Within microseconds, they will synthesize polymers, undergo ionic bonding and anchor themselves. Next we use a magnetic yoke to adjust the matrix settings so that the micromachines at each coordinate with the server grafted to your occipital…"

Ritsuko lowered a large box of some sort over his head, enveloping him in darkness. Only a small slit of light through which her feet could be seen was visible.

"…It takes time, since the number of scan lines increases relative to the size of the micromachines. This way, micromachines that have penetrated the brain can both send and receive signals on the brain condition and the distribution of electrical signals… Sensations are shared with the sensory nerves," she continued.

"That's a lot of…" whatever that science was called… "…invasive surgery for something that can be accomplished with Waldo's…" Shinji said with an acerbic tone of voice. There was brooding humming, and then Shinji had a headache.

* * *

Still with a headache, Shinji found himself inside the 'Entry Plug' of Unit-01; a large cylinder connected with a thick heap of cables to the Eva's neck. He'd been strapped down into a seat with two joysticks, and ECCO technicians had connected four jacks to his new neural interface. Occasionally a drop of blood would slide down the back of his shirt, paining a blood-red tribute to Dr Akagi's hurried work. It itched too.

"Hey, I told you not to scratch that!" Ritsuko's voice ran through his mind, complete with a hypercard avatar in his peripheral vision. Shinji removed his had from his neck. It still itched.

"Now, we're going to fill the Entry Plug with a liquid," Ritsuko said, still reverberating though his _mind_, not ears, which heard a gurgling sound as a cold, clear liquid crawled up his legs, "after your lungs fill with the liquid – it's called LCL – you should be able to breathe,"

_Wait what?_

"I have some doubts about this," Shinji noted. Could they actually hear him speaking, or would he have to use the cybercom?

"You'll get used to it," Ritsuko said. The liquid reached his mouth.

There was no way he was going to let himself drown. Reflexively, he held his breath, struggling against the cold, viscous fluid. It struck Shinji, straight before he drowned, that his lung capacity was really poor.

Asphyxiation-reflexes forced Shinji to inhale, filling his lungs slowly with the viscous fluid. As it poured down, Shinji's gagged and coughed while bubbles of air escaped his lungs and abdomen. He started to shiver.

"Don't worry about the heat," Ritsuko said, "or lack of it, as it may be. As soon as the environmental controls come online it will reach room temperature,"

Shinji gulped LCL in a flawed attempt to say something in return.

LCL contained proteins that synthesized perflurocarbons. Perfluodecalin, synthesized from carbon and fluorine found in the LCL would dissolve oxygen from Unit-01's NBC-filtered air supply into the LCL, allowing the membrane walls of the lungs to absorb oxygen from the hyper-oxygenated liquid.

Shinji suddenly gained an uncanny awareness of the CIC, as if it was projected on the inside of his mind, filled with homunculi of Dr Akagi, Misato (she'd insisted on that) and the rest of the command staff. His real eyes were filled with the blurry, hazed glow of awakening eyes, while his mind was further stuffed with a fruitful feeling of intrusion.

* * *

"Is it over ten percent?" Ritsuko asked as she strode over to Maya's full-immersion dive station.

"Uh, senpai…" Maya began as Ritsuko's hand clamped down on her shoulder "Alpha waves are already at forty…" she pointed to a pair of overlapping sinusoid waves, continuously graphed on her computer screen "Beta waves at forty-seven and rising – Theta waves are fluctuating but average at fifty" she isolated a frantic wave diagram and maximized the window to the benefit of Ritsuko. The good doctor's eyes shot wide open, and her breathing, faintly audible in Maya's ear, got more rapid for a second "The average level is 50%, plus-minus 2,"

"That's incredible!" Ritsuko said. "Ayanami took seven _months_ to reach that level of synchronization, not seven _seconds; _that's better than the Second Child, even," Ritsuko's eyes darted around her skull, "Of course, this places an anomaly in hypothesis…" she said under her breath, so only Maya could hear it. She turned to Misato. "It's working! The Third Child is sufficiently synchronized with Unit-01,"

Misato smiled. She'd waited over half her life for this.

"Prepare for launch," she yelled through her mouth-piece "Awaiting launch authorization, Commander,"

"Granted," Gendo replied half-heartedly, as always.

* * *

Shinji was pushed down in his pilot's seat by five times his own weight. The rapid acceleration made him attempt to vomit, but his half-a-day-old ramen and sandwiches were held back by their own weight and the LCL that had seeped down his esophagus. His eyeballs hurt, like they were being forced out of his skull. The lightheadedness returned as blood escaped to his legs. Then everything suddenly became so light, and he drifted out his seat, only held back by a five-point safety belt; he slammed back into the seat.

His vision was blurred and unclear, filled with dark spots. He could vaguely make out the greenish silhouette of the Rakbu against the grey-black city. He blinked, twice, to clear his eyes. He still couldn't see any better. He was effectively blind.

In this situation, he did what any Shinji Ikari would have done.

He screamed.


	2. Layer 02: DINGIR XUL Denouement

Author's Note: If you read Chapter 1 of this story before 23:00 GMT+1 20091230, you should probably reread it - it has undergone a lot of changes

* * *

**The Ghost of Evangelion – Layer 02  
A Ghost in the Shell/Neon Genesis Evangelion Crossover**

**YUGAWARA, KANAGAWA PREFACTURE – Thursday August 1****st****, 2030**  
"The pilot is showing signs of extreme stress – his blood pressure and adrenaline level are…" Hyuga trailed off.

"Shinji, what's the problem?" Misato asked.

"I… I can't see," came the reply.

"He's suffering from a brown-out?" Misato asked Ritsuko "Now?"

Ritsuko nodded. "If, although I think it's unlikely, we miscalculated the weight-to-power ratio of the launch pads, he might have experienced 5g's or more of acceleration on his way up – it would explain…"

"Thank you. That's enough," Misato interrupted; neither she nor Shinji needed to know the details "Ibuki! Overlap his field-of-view with the visual feed, then find some way to give him a view of the Entry Plug."

* * *

Shinji's vision returned, partially – he could see the Entry Plug now, as if seen through 3D glasses , projected from multiple angles at once, together with the sickly green hues of night vision filling the canopy. A map appeared, superimposed over his legs, not intruding his view of the outside world, offered by an array of cameras. A thick white line was drawn from a figure marked 'UNIT-01' to a nearby building, blinking 'COVER'

"I… I can see again!" Shinji blurted.

"OK Shinji," Ritsuko said from an avatar in his peripheral vision "Imagine yourself walking. Envision the feeling of movement in your legs and the Eva will move accordingly,"

_Ah,_ Shinji thought _they stuck me in a humongous mecha without motor control._ He was certain there was a prize for that sort of thing, just like there was one for having ever climbed into Unit-01 in the first place.

Shinji tried to think about walking and felt a stinging feeling, pins-and-needles, in his legs; phantom sensations from a second pair of legs he had never owned. He felt Unit-01 – him – lunge 15 meters forwards in unsteady motions – he was going to regret this, he knew.

* * *

_Walking lessons, in a war-zone?_ thought Maj. Kusanagi baffled. _Seriously?_ She sat perched on top of JGSDF Armored Personnel Carrier, watching the impending battle through a pair of binoculars. The Ground Defence Force had ordered their troops to pull back, citing 'overwhelming firepower' as justification.

"So…" Togusa began "what's happening Major?" He sat in the pod of a newly repainted Tachikoma, hanging his head in his arms.

"Well… The younger Ikari seems to have gotten the hang of drunken shambling…" Maj. Kusanagi replied

"He's going to get himself killed," Batou concluded. He threw a cigarette to the ground.

"And we're just going to watch?" Togusa shouted, angrily. His voice echoed slightly in the empty streets.

The Major looked at her forces: Five platoons of Special Forces Mechanized Infantry and three artillery platoons – two now that one of them were out of commission, against an alien affront to nature that could taken small nuclear weapons to the face. A small smile appeared on her prosthetic face.

"Of course not," she said "Tachikoma; fan out and surround the –" she swallowed her pride "–giant monster, and await my orders." The dark green robot vehicles wiggled off their pilots, and bounce up and down like a ship in a storm, waving their hands up and down in joy – "We're going to fight a monster! We're going to fight a monster!" they squealed as they drove off "It's as big as Godzilla!"

The Major turned to her squadmates "Ishikawa, Batou! I need your help to make a dive,"

* * *

Shinji stumbled around in Unit-01, trying to maintain balance despite feeling 8000 times more sluggish than he expected. As he fell towards a building, he reached out to brace for impact, purely on instinct, and Unit-01 followed. His view rushed towards the ground, then stopped. He was certain his last meal was about to follow.

"OK, Shinji," he heard Misato say in an encouraging voice "You seem to have gotten the hand of walking now – let's get onto combat,"

"Your two most important tools are the AT field and the Type 28 Artillery Autocannon; that rifle-thing in Unit-01's right arm," she continued.

Shinji looked down at his own arm, which was skin-coloured, shifted slightly towards a green hue. _Wait._ Shinji reminded himself_ That's _my_ arm._ Shinji shook his head slightly, and then looked down and out to his right. Unit-01's arm, radiating greyly, held a large black rifle loosely – as Shinji thought he focused his eyes upon it, his meatspace eyes still blind and replaced with rendered views, a hypercard of information appeared, telling him everything he didn't want to know and hadn't really planned on asking (but in hindsight should have) about it – it fired 155x800mm APFSDS shells, _Whatever that means,_ held 30 rounds and had a lot of other attributes. Shinji grasped the rifle in his hand.

It fired.

Into his foot.

* * *

A dampened, once ear-shattering explosion rang out through the CIC, followed by the sundering scream of Shinji in pain. A lot of people winced.

"It's not your real foot Shinji!" Misato said, in what she hoped was a reassuring tone "Try to concentrate on the mission objectives…" she paused for a fraction of second "your task!" she appropriated, "try to focus on fighting the Rakbu,"

Something resembling a reply hidden behind a moan of pain came back through the communications channels. Hyuga reported actual tinnitus in the pilot, form the resonating armour plating.

"Shinj, calm down." Misato said. "Take some time to get back into shape. You're safe behind these buildings…"

A purple beam of light burst from Isimud and burned through the building Shinji used for cover, scattering its façade all over the nearby ground while scorching the internal paper walls and lighting the floorboards aflame, before turning everything to ashes. Glass, steel and other assorted building materials were scattered all over Unit-01's frontal armor, only to be blown away by the radiating force of the beam of light penetrating deep into the Eva's chest and scorching flesh. The smell of burnt flesh and smoldered concrete spread throughout the building blocks at the speed of dispersion.

Shinji screamed again as Unit-01 staggered backwards, partly on his reflex.

The CIC erupted into unease – to Misato, it was as if the universe hated her, making her every word into an invitation to screw her (and everyone else) over in painful ways. She turned quickly to the MAGI operators:

"Is Shinji still conscious?"

"Yes, Captain," Hyuga reported "The Third Child is still conscious,"

"Good," Misato said, "Uh, place an emergency recovery team on high alert," she added to Aoba. "Now…"

Misato was interrupted by a loud claxon wailing, complete with red light bathing the CIC in red lights for a few seconds, before fading a little. The main screen flashed **[INTRUSION ALERT]** Misato groaned – the universe really did hate her.

"Trace that." she ordered Maya loudly. The MAGI operator pulled down her full-immersion headset, regretfully as Ritsuko leant away. Her eyes were assaulted by bright light in three colours, scattering red, green and blue points all over her prosthetic eyes, creating the shared hallucination of a physical world, slowly approaching the hacker's position, complete with a satellite image from Molyina orbit.

"It's…" Maya said, startled. "It's Maj. Motoko Kusanagi of the JGSDF, Captain!"

There were many surprised exclamations, all deafened by the sound of Misato's right hand leaving a large red mark on the side of her face. _Bitter, uncaring universe that hates me so…_

"Major…" was all she could say over a secure line "what do you _think_ you are _doing_?"

"I'm taking command of Unit-01," the purple-haired woman's avatar replied, inside the imagined hallucination of cyberspace that filled Misato's head. In meatspace, the Captain hung her head in her arms, completely ruining all illusions of still having control as dozens of pairs of eyes, even android Operators transcribing from the CIC, were focused on her and her alone – the standing, half-fetal Unit-01 was of little interest, despite being the subject of conversation.

"You can't hack Unit-01! It won't obey you!" Misato yelled. She turned to Ritsuko. The doctor shook her head. Never.

"Major!" Misato pleaded.

"I'm not going to hack Unit-01;" Maj. Kusanagi explained, "I'm going to dive Shinji Ikari. He can control it, right?" she asked rethorically.

"Well, yes, but…" Misato stuttered "You don't have any experience with the Eva-units!" Misato tried

Maj. Kusanagi let out a sigh.

"Neither does the boy! I don't think it's going to make much of a difference," _Never mind the 25 years of military experience I have on him…_

"Major!" Misato yelled in a desperate attempt to return things to a situation she was comfortable with, rather than spiraling out of control. Her demeanor had gone from unfrazzled commander (and hot to boot! She was very proud of that!) to frazzled and desperate in seconds, and her sweaty hands were tightly gripping her hair and leaving with several black strands. She let out a frustrated, mumbled scream.

* * *

ECCO's attack barriers were rather weak, and didn't make up for it in quantity, the Major thought as she disabled a dozen of them – she'd seen freelance terrorists with better defences than these, and ECCO was a paramilitary organization. She, Batou and Ishikawa approached Shinji's field of consciousness, currently experiencing heavy traffic, and stopped just before his mind.

"Batou, Ishikawa," she transmitted "I'm going to make the dive from here, down to his ghostline. Back me up." She didn't wait for a reply as she disabled another pathetic attack barrier (Five_ years out of date? Seriously?_) and decrypted his ghostkey. _Wait. Something's wrong…_

* * *

Shinji crawled up into a fetal position in his seat, constrained by the safety belts, making it not very fetal at all – it didn't matter; he just wanted to get away from it all – away from battle, away from this stupid machine that hurt its pilot, which sort of ruined the idea of it being _armour_ in any way, and away from the bastard of a father who thought this was a good form of reconciliation. Away.

Suddenly, a warm comforting feeling spread through his body. The pain almost subsided and he was filled with an immaterial feeling of comfort and safety, pressing against him and removing all feeling of inadequacy, solitude and loss, returning only warmth.

_I love you Shinji. I do love you. I've always loved you, and I always will love you._

* * *

Shinji's mind was completely inert, yet the in-and-out-going traffic between it and the outside world had increased, and that was not something that was supposed to happen – especially not with a fetal, near-catatonic pilot. Something was amiss. Maj. Kusanagi's attack barriers began screaming. _Oh crap!_ A neural net unfolded itself and suddenly she was peering into the Eva's mind. A flood of information streamed towards her. _Someone else!_ It hit her. She was forcibly booted from Shinji's ghost and mind as it collided with her own attack barriers. Half of them died instantly. Another two layers froze. In meatspace, a plastic device around her neck exploded, severing her connection. The Major's limp shell fell to the ground like a brain-dead corpse.

* * *

In the metaphysical cyberspace of consciousness between Shinji and Unit-01, something snapped.

Unit-01 gained a new posture; it stood up straight and perfectly balanced. Metal screamed as the welded seams of its mouth were torn apart. One scream gave way to another; an unearthly howl filled the skies of Hakone, like a whale singing a murder ballad, a terrifying sound both appealing and appalling to the Primal Fear at once, driving all the rats in Hakone away as if this was inverse-Hamlin, leaving a murder-zone around Unit-01. The Eva jumped out from cover and charged at the Rakbu.

Three beams shot out from Isimud. The first two missed the white giant. The third struck Unit-01 in the eye, deluging the Entry Plug in an incandescent glow. The beam had penetrated they eye and passed through the brain and burst from the rear armor into a skyscraper. Unit-01 didn't flinch. Another three-round burst of light left large mounds of melted metal and charred flesh in Unit-01's frontal armor.

Unit-01 had reached the Rakbu. The implacable wall met the not-quite-unstoppable object as the white and black giants crashed together. Unit-01 clawed at the AT field in a maddened frenzy, taking several more beams of light to the chest without stopping; the beams grew more erratic and scattered, firing faster and faster at the Eva. A few beams missed entirely and demolished nearby buildings, cutting deep into concrete and steel foundations; concrete dust and metal vapor flooded out from collapsing buildings like fully dilute pyroclastic density surges. Flashes of noise and static scattered in the air as Unit-01 scratched futilely. A rush of air emanated from the two battling giants.

Maya Ibuki felt a rush of substance through her brain. She lifted the brace of her dive-station and checked the graphs.

"Sempai," she called "Unit-01 is projecting an AT field!"

Ritsuko got down on one knee and stared at the graphs; a manifold of sinusoid waves approached each other and transformed to random Schumann noise.

"They're neutralizing!" Ritsuko blurted out.

Unit-01 wedged itself in the opening between the AT fields and shoved the 155mm autocannon into the gap, firing a three-round burst directly at the core. The shells ripped straight through Isimud, shredding its spine in two. Shockwaves ran through its torso, tearing capillaries and arteries apart. Blood poured out from both ends of the wounds at high pressure, leaving a black-blue pool of alien circulatory system on the ground.

Isimud collapsed onto Unit-01 and wiped out a veritable sector of the city with a sphere of thermal radiation enveloping Unit-01. The very air itself burnt and rose several kilometers into the air, a pillar searing the eyes of onlookers. ECCO and JASDF UAVs dropped out of the sky like poisoned flies, crashing into buildings as their outer skins were flayed off by the power of a local sun. Every single window in Yugawara shattered, releasing a murderous shower of polished death, raining down upon the streets with the density of acid rain. It sounded like a post-modern orchestra playing on panes of glass, broadcasted over loudspeakers for the benefit of a near-deaf audience. As soon as it had landed, the glass was swept away by a shockwave, a wall of certain death emanating away from ground zero shredding anything that might stand before it; a horde of sharp locusts embedding themselves in concrete as they struck into surfaces that were stupid enough to stand in their way.

And yet, even though Unit-01 had been in the very middle of this, it stood in the licking flames, air so hot even smoke could combust and burn again, covered in ashes and burnt paint, its remaining eye glowing.

* * *

**ASHIGARASHIMO DISTRICT, KANEGAWA PREFACTURE, Saturday 3****rd**** August, 2030**

Ashigarashimo District was one large fortress city. Hakone, Yugawara and Manazuru had grown in size, spreading outwards like resilient bacterial cultures and achieving a form of symbiosis as their fronts joined together, creating a seamless urban sprawl that stretched from Ashinoko to the Pacific Ocean. The monotone steel-and-glass structures were broken, occasionally, by a small parks and spots of grass; anachronism of the past standing steadfast against a future that tried, very slowly, to choke itself to death on alcohol fumes.

They were also nice live-drop points.

Maj. Kusanagi sat down on a park bench, took of her officer cap and hung her arms off the back of the park bench, staring up into the unblinking eye of the sun. She peered over at Chief Aramaki. He read a newspaper. She switched to cybercom, running a WLAN at wavelengths and amplitudes such that it was near impossible to detect mere meters away, much less hear anything but noise – short of an actual, physical connection, it was the safest way to communicate in low-EM-noise locations like parks.

"So. Is your cover holding up?" Aramaki asked.

"Me and everyone in Section 9 so far," Maj. Kusanagi answered while looking up into the for-once-blue sky. A slight smile appeared in the vertices of her mouth. "I thought I was finished being the lapdog of the military years ago. Turns out I was always lapdog to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the end."

"Maybe you shouldn't have punched the Minister in the face unprovoked, if you wanted his good favour" Aramaki said. The Major smiled as she replayed the memory in her mind.

"Anyway. My report. The Earth Coincidence Control Office presents itself as a military research laboratory subsidiary to the Tachibana Labs decentralized megacorporation – in reality its closer to an independent, paramilitary megacorporation in itself, controlled through a feudalistic hierarchy running down from the Ikari-family…"

"Of which there are only two surviving members – Gendo Ikari and Shinji Ikari," Aramaki amended.

"Correct. The father made his son pilot his…" there was a pause "…giant robot, _supposedly_ because only a very small fraction of the world population have the required neural plasticity…"

"You're saying Gendo Ikari chose his son because he's easy to control?" Aramaki asked

"Not just his son. I talked to their other pilot, one Rei Ayanami, this morning in the hospital – another child; introverted, submissive and taciturn. If we want to shut down ECCO on short notice we can press charges for 'corporate child abuse through emotional manipulation' and bring a team of lawyers onto the case,"

"I'll keep that in mind," Aramaki said, while reading an utterly uninteresting article about the Japanese economy. "When the younger Ikari recovers, I want Togusa to talk to him. Meanwhile, I want you to ask some question to this Ayanami, the Tactical Chief of Staff and the Scientific Chief of Staff. Discretely, of course," Aramaki turned his newspaper over and checked the weather forecast –clouds with the occasional bout of sun and/or rain. The temperatures were going to drop heavily too – it hadn't been like that when he was young...

The Major threw herself up into a standing position, not even acknowledging the old geezer sitting on the park bench beside her.

"Will do, Chief,"

Major Kusanagi left the park where no conversation had taken place, certainly not with Daisuke Aramaki, a public servant in the employ of the Minister of Interal Affairs. They had not discussed confidential information about a paramilitary organization commissioned by the JSDF, and they hadn't discussed something as despicable as using children to unwittingly spy on their parents and friends, because that was something neither a JGSDF officer nor a public servant would ever do, and in any case they had never met and could therefore not have discussed it in the first place, right? The fact that both the JGSDF and the Ministry of Interal Affairs answered to the Prime Minister of Japan was not relevant. At all.

The Major walked calmly down the streets of the Hakone-Yugawara-Manazuru-urban sprawl, surrounded on both sides by endless buildings that towered towards the skies, their reflective mirror-windows reflecting off each other, generating an infinitely deep hall of worlds, each with the same pleasantly blue skies and right white clouds, colouring the grey city-white blue. In the distance, downhill from where she was, Maj. Kusanagi could see the experimental ellipsoid pyramids; giant apartment complexes covered on one entire side by a mosaic of flexible mirrors distributing solar power to the entire city – a cheap, alternative backup system to the nuclear power plants that were an eyesore to the still-mostly-untouched inland Japan.

At the bottom of the hill, she found Cpt. Katsuragi and Dr Akagi overlooking the preparation of Ashigarashimo against another attack. A Botanachi tilt-rotor passed overhead, carrying the detached head of Unit-01. Artificial white blood dripped from loose arteries that had fallen from their secured positions, onto the roads and rooftops, and as the tilt-rotor banked to make a turn towards Manazuru, it painted walls white, scattering the thick, coagulated fluid all over the side of a line of apartment complexes – later the body of the Eva would be dragged, ever-so-slowly, from Odawara and to the ECCO GeoFront on an island just outside Manazuru, on a pair of flat-bed trucks, parading the corpse around like one would a slain enemy, as opposed to the martyr-hero it was if one anthropomorphized it in the first place – the reek of rotting vat-grown flesh, mixed with the disgusting smell of melted plastic would linger through the cities, distributed by a wind that afterwards could only be described as foul – Maj. Kusanagi pitied those still left in their biological shells, trapped with noses that couldn't be disabled.

"…a firing pin – if we need to replace them after every battle," she could hear Cpt. Katsuragi say "it could get very expensive. There were minor deformations in the barrel too – it's just not built for such a high rate of… Oh, hi Major Kusanagi!" Misato waved the Major over. Ritsuko turned her head towards the arrival. She was leaning out the window of an enormous ECCO truck, and shifted her weight against the windowsill.

Misato Katsuragi placed her arms akimbo and made a point of looking at ECCO's defensive systems – 155x800mm shells had propellant changed duct-taped to them, before being shoved into oversized ammunitions belts – the Eva-rifle, as it had been dubbed, was belt-fed, pulling artillery shells from a box-magazine; pushing 2.25 tons of ordinance 4.6 meters straight up was simply not feasible using an (oversized) standard box-magazine – the work was handled by an internal engine running off the Eva's own power supply. Filled belts were pulled into long, thin, black rectangular prisms, which then were hoisted by crane into special buildings strategically placed in the urban sprawl. A large ECCO truck rolled by carrying a backup Eva-rifle under a canvas.

"If we all work together," the Captain said "…we might make it through this!"

"You're optimistic," Ritsuko said half-sarcastically. "Are you going to take on the Rakbu all by yourself?"

"If I could pilot I would," Misato said with a mix of enthusiasm and regret.

"Why don't you?" the Major asked as casually as she could.

"Ritsuko says I'm too old. Too old! I'm not even thirty!" Misato laughed.

"Sure, if you _want_ cyberbrain sclerosis…" Ritsuko said

"Yeah, yeah. I know. I can dream, can't I?" Misato said. "Still, if worst comes to worst…"

"Then I won't let you, both as a friend and as a trained medical practitioner," Ritsuko said, adding a harsh undertone of concern. "Besides, your compatibility with the KIDs Outer Receptors is…" the good doctor paused for words –

"Inadequate?" the Captain and Major both volunteered.

"Not the word I was looking for but, ah, _adequate_ nonetheless," Dr Akagi said matter-of-factly.

* * *

Shinji awoke in a pool of his own saliva, with a subsiding (but not yet, much to his displeasure, _subsided_) migraine on the right side of his head. Entirely lost after unknown amounts of troubled sleeping, Shinji fumbled around in the bed sheets, trapping himself in a roll as he regained his Sixth Sense, namely balance.

Once Shinji got loose from the giant chocking snake of chalk-white bedsheets, he found another layer of chalk-white-and-grey in what could only be a hospital, a conclusion that was much easier to reach once he saw the shapely legs of a medical android. It had the trademarked pleasant, soothing voice instantly recognizable from Japanese medical dramas – the voice had been modeled after a now former Meditech office lady with a sharp mind, who had secured herself the royalties when desperate R&D techs needed a voice for an already-delayed product-demonstration, and she was now relatively rich

"Good morning, Shinji Ikari. Do you still have a migraine? Is there anything I can help you with?" the android said.

Shinji tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes – _more importantly: WHY am I here?_ Could it actually answer that? _Oh yeah. My father forced me to pilot a giant robot against space aliens. _He should have thought of that at once.

His stomach growled and felt like it was trying to eat itself – it felt like he hadn't eater for… days?

"Which day is it today?"

"Today is Saturday the 3rd of August, 2030," it answered – one day; he'd been out cold for an entire day. He walked over to a window and stared out; everything was pale and washed out, like a bleached ink stain. Shinji pulled off the disgustingly white hospital gown he was wearing; his own clothes were neatly folded and placed at the foot end of his bed. He pulled the trousers on and stared at the shirt. It would have to do for now; it wasn't as if he owned anything else.

As Shinji's hand brushed over his chest in the process of tucking the shirt in, it felt like touching old bruises. His entire body felt sore. He'd felt the pain of Unit-01, not that inanimate objects could feel pain – which only served to make the sensation even stranger, but he'd still felt every blow and every ray of light; not only did his thoughts cross the barrier into Unit-01's AI, but _it_ passed back into _him_: he couldn't shake the feeling that his mind was invaded by thoughts – data – that wasn't his own; warm, comforting, yet unmistakably _alien_.

* * *

**ECCO GEOFRONT, 8****th**** August 2030  
**Misato Katsuragi barged into Shinji's hospital room and yelled "Sorryimlate" into the room before actually checking if he was there. An android nurse started a preprogrammed line on visitation hours, then stopped mid-sentence as it recognized that the Captain outranked such concerns. It switched over to another preprogrammed line on privacy, which was promptly ignored.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get to see you all week," Misato said. Her eyes scanned the hospital room.

"You're all packed up?" she asked Shinji "Good; let's get you out of here," she continued before Shinji had answered or even processed the question. As she slammed the door open once more the android nurse aped clearing its throat and emulated the sound with a standard audio-clip; "Captain, please do not slam the…" The door slammed shut. "…doors."

* * *

Up until one week ago, Shinji's life had been uneventful – he rarely left Kyosho or even the four walls of his foster-father's house, much less did he encounter something as fantastic as aliens, time travelers and/or espers – in fact, he was unaccustomed to fast driving.

He wished he wasn't.

Misato's (she kept insisting on that) driving was more intimidating than a fully-armed SpecOps team – and probably as dangerous – she appeared to have no concept of safety distances, speed limits, red lights, _lanes…_

Misato was giving Shinji a guided tour of Manazuru, showing him (in her opinion) all the best places to eat shop and entertain oneself. Shinji was certain he received the abridged version – occasionally Misato would demonstrate the Law of Conservation of Momentum (i.e. brake) outside, say, a liquor shop, state longingly for a while, before deciding that there were metaphorical spiders on the gas pedal that needed to die a stompy death, all without saying anything.

Misato fumbled for something the glove compartment, halfway leaning over him while glancing up at the road. The car swerved halfway into another lane before Misato corrected it, bumping hard as the front and rear wheels hit the sidewalk – Misato found what she was looking for, and handed Shinji a mindlink cable, while making hand-motions towards the jacks next to the car stereo and GPS, as well as her neck . _What does she want me to...? Oh, yeah._ He had a neural interface now.

He fumbled around his own neck – he had no tactile input from the plastic plate, leaving him with an unnerving feeling whenever he felt nothing as his hand passed over the plate surgically attached to his skull – his seventh sense (kinesthetic) telling him that he was shoving a blunt metal object into his most valuable nerves _without feeling it_ did not help.

Four white circles, inhabited by avatars appeared in his peripheral view; Misato, Dr Akagi, Maj. Kusanagi, and an old man Shinji vaguely remembered, labeled Dr. Fuyutsuki.

"So, Shinji; where will you be living?" Misato asked.

While Shinji searched for the paper note telling him just that, Maj. Kusanagi took the word:

"I was under the impression that he would be living with his father?" she asked, leaving the implication of misinformation abundantly clear, despite (or perhaps because) the utter lack of facial expressions in her avatar.

"It's only natural for Ikari and his son to live without each other," Fuyutsuki offered .

Shinji dug a paper note from his pocket and read the street name and address. His own avatar, unseen to him but visible to all the other participants of the conversation, was an inert, slightly younger version of Shinji in a black school uniform taken a couple of years ago, chosen simply because there weren't any other good pictures available when they needed him to use Unit-01's internal communications system.

"Unacceptable," the Major said "It's too exposed,"

"It's also a dump," meatspace!Misato mumbled under her breath.

Misato, Ritsuko, the Major and Fuyutsuki discussed the issue back and forth, completely uninteresting to Shinji, who rather than following looked the windows of the car – it was sunset, and as Misato drove along the raised highway that connected Odawara, Manazuru and Hakone – she was driving surprisingly and pleasantly calm now; Shinji looked at the dashboard, which blinked **[AUTOPILOT]** _That explains it…_ - he could see the red run reflected off the metal-and-glass buildings, reflecting the sky in pastels of orange, yellow and red, like a shattered mirror stretching as far as he could see, broken only by the calm, strongly blue sea at the edge of Japan. Black lines of newly lain road were sketched across the autumn-like landscape, complemented by their bright-white outlines – soon the sun would be down and all that would be left would be the thousands of neon-lights burning through the blackness in an infinite number of colours, like neurons firing.

It was beautiful.

"He could live with me," Misato blurted out.

"What did you say?" Ritsuko's avatar said flatly. The lack of expression in both Fuyutsuki's and Maj. Kusanagi's avatars were uncannily adequate reflections of their actual expressions. Shinji, meanwhile, tried to force a lot of air through his nose as his lungs contracted in shock.

"I have the space," Misato explained "and I already live next to a private rail to ECCO headquarters _and_ within walking distance from his school," she said. A deem humming of displeasure originated from Ritsuko's avatar.

"Relax, I'm not going to put the moves on him," Misaot shot Ritsuko over a private line.

There was a silence, then an outburst.

"OF COURSE YOU WON'T!" Ritsuko yelled back "How can you even _think_ like that? You have no shame at all!

_Can't take a joke, can she?_ Misato thought. She turned attention back to the open (in the sense that there were more than two people involved) conversation, and away from everything else, including Shinji's pretty face, where it had never been in the first place. Honestly.

""Why don't we ask Shinji?" she said "He's the one going to live someplace; he should be allowed to choose," More silence. Maj. Kusanagi, among others, was not so sure if that actually applied to people whom the fate of the world partly depended on – it was not very strategically sound.

"What do you say Shinji? Where do you want to live?" Misato asked him.

"It doesn't matter," Shinji replied.

"Then it's decided. He's living with me," Misato declared, much to the displeasure of logic.

There was a collective, subdued groan as Misato closed the conversation, and the four avatars disappeared. However, the happiness Shinji received from the return of his peripheral vision was quickly displaced by the gut-wrenching dread of realizing that Misato _had no more use for the autopilot!_

"If you're going to be my new roommate, we're going to have to have a welcoming party!" Misato declared as she demonstrated how to make a parking-break-U-turn with great skill and little concern.

* * *

Shinji considered Misato's concept of a "welcoming party" – he couldn't be too impolite in his thoughts, (well actually he _could_ – he just didn't consider it fair) considering that there was a lot of free food with raw materials that if not of stellar quality… _Oh hell, who am I lying too! This is what broke students eat!_ …it was at least prepared with all the care an overgrown student and a microwave could manage… _Which means _nothing_ considering how this delinquent of a woman makes food!_

Other Misato's cooking might be horrible because of a complete lack of taste, possibly even in both senses of the term, but not this Misato – no _this_ Misato knew how to cook even if she had strange tastes – no, this Misato had another problem. She was a cyborg.

Shinji was not quite aware of how much of her was a cyborg, except that he knew she had a cyberbrain like over 99% of adult Japan, and he considered it impolite to ask directly (which meant he was probably going to do so within the next few weeks…) but she didn't appear to be a full-conversion cyborg, as evident by her beautiful, distinctive face and the natural skin on her arms and, not that he had looked, legs – she was a common type of cyborg, and needed a diet of both normal and special food (the term 'special food' was frowned upon, and Shinji knew it was only a matter of time before 'cyborg food' would end up in that same treadmill and come out as a mutilated euphemism) like most people who had more than a cyberbrain needed. (This justified to Shinji how he could feel he had the right to be revolted at this sacrilege against gastronomy, even though he was, unfamiliarly, a cyborg himself)

Rather than, say, leave her sugar-rich food supplements and patches of brown animal fat without large fat molecules of the type that artificial digestive systems had problems with outside the main course, or, for that matter, making two dishes – one for Shinji _without_ the supplements and one for herself _with_ the supplements – or even, as Shinji knew because he had cooked for mixed cyborg/baseline groups before, hidden or combined the unfamiliar tastes behind something else. No, Misato Katsuragi had chosen to just dump everything in the same pile, mixing ramen, pork soup and ham with fat-sugar mass nonchalantly while Shinji cleared the dining table of empty (or half empty – there was still a wet spot on the floor) beer cans and car magazines.

It didn't appear that even Misato herself enjoyed the food, pouring entire cans of beer into her ramen to douse the sickening taste. Did she intend for him to do the same? There were certainly enough cans – what with an _entire third_ of her fridge consisting entirely of various forms of beer.

"So, aren't you going to eat anything?" Misato interrupted his train of thoughts, "It's good, even if it's all instant!"

_Like that's the main problem._

"Oh, uh, sorry" Shinji apologized "I'm just not used to eating this kind of food…"

Misato frowned, the almost jumped across the table , leaning over and making him regress into his chair.

"Are you finicky!?" she asked in a voice that pulled his attention towards her face in an instant.

"I meant _cyborg_ food," Shinji lied in retort. Misato fortunately, perhaps, sat back down with another beer can.

"Yeah, well... Growing up in Japan today means you're just going to have to get used to stuff like that," she said matter-of-factly.

* * *

Misato had, after telling him to take advantage of everything in the apartment, suggested that the take advantage of the bath and wash away his troubles and worries by cleaning body and soul, which was why he was now standing entirely naked under what amounted to a chandelier of Misato's underwear.

It was… surreal.

The penguin moreso.

"Mi-mi-mi-mi-Misato!" he yelled once he had ran out of the bathroom "A Pe-pe-pe-pen-pen-pen-g…" he stammered as the penguin wobbled past him over to a fridge.

"Oh, him," Misato said as if it was obvious that a penguin used her bath – then again, he was getting used to the fantastic being obvious by now – next thing his school would fall into a dimensional hole and half the student body would act like they had expected it, or the nearest computer would manifest sentience and nobody would care – "He's an uplifted penguin. His name is Pen-Pen; he's your other roommate"

"Eh, Misato" Shinji said, marking his point with a raised index finger "Man-penguins are, like all uplifted animals, highly illegal and…"

"You're a bit too naked to be lecturing me," Misato retorted.

* * *

Misato knocked thrice on the bathroom door in quick succession. Shinji tried to duck further beneath the tiny waves in the bathtub, but alas, it was not sufficiently deep. At least, she didn't enter.

"Shinji, are you there?" she asked "Just so you don't think I'm some sort of complete monster who deserves cyberbrainwashing – I participated in a military raid a few years ago against a corporation that produced illegally uplifted animals for who-knows-what purposes. Pen-Pen was one of those animals. Killing anything with a human brain is illegal in Japan, so I volunteered to become his guardian,"

Shinji lifted his head out of the water.

"Just so you know," she said and left; Shinji could hear her bare feet against the floor.

* * *

Ishikawa stretched his arms and rubbed his eyes – he's just spent five hours straight having a computer screen projected directly at his eyes, and now he needed a drink – a hard one. Luckily for him, he kept a small bar cabinet in his office, something that had become legal shortly after the popularization of prosthetic metabolism that could break down alcohol in an instant, making it no less dangerous than water for consumption.

He sat down with a glass of whiskey on a tabled and waited until he'd drained the entire glass and gotten himself a new one before he called Chief Aramaki over the internal WLAN.

"I've checked ECCO's employee and correspondence lists twice sir," he said

"Did you find anything?" Aramaki asked rapidly.

"The Control Office runs an entire school," Ishikawa continued

"We knew that. Get to the point," Aramaki said.

"The class that both of ECCO's pilots go to has an unnaturally high rate of cyberization,"

"Over 10%?" Aramaki asked.

Ishikawa laughed a short, quiet laugh

"One. Hundred. Percent," he transmitted while taking a sip of his whiskey.

"What!?" was Aramaki's only reply.

"There's not a single student who's not a cyborg in that class, and over fifty percent in all the other classes,"

"Hmmm… That's suspicious, even for a private school," Aramaki said, "I'll have you and Borma look into the matter tomorrow morning"

"I hear you Chief," Ishikawa said, logged off, and yawned.


	3. Layer 03: COMPLEX A wind that blows, str

**The Ghost of Evangelion – Layer **_**i**_**  
A Neon Genesis Evangelion/Ghost in the Shell crossover**

**Present day, present time**  
The CEO of the Earth Coincidence Control Office, Gendo Ikari, sat with folded hands in the safety of his office, letting trichromatic laser light refract against his glasses, painting red, green and blue afterimages on his retina, forming a coherent, consensual hallucination in his mind of a dark room illuminated only by those who shared this hallucination with him.

There was a tense silence hanging in the imaginary room, only waiting to be broken – as it was:

"You handed a demigod over to your son, Ikari..." a man illuminated by a yellow haze prompted. His dissatisfaction and the implications of nepotism were clear. Ironic, considering that nepotism was one of the many tools IGIGI used to watch and affect, and only affect, not control, or so they claimed, the world. They were, of course, lying.

"It was necessary to stop the first Rakbu," Gendo replied, not even breaking eye-contact with some imagined point in the air somewhere above his desk, looking simultaneously at all the IGIGI heads and none of them at all.

"Isimud has always been faithful to Enki," a sickly green man, due to the luminescent cloud of light that surrounded him, retorted "It should not have been a threat at all,"

"Yet you managed to wreck two Units," a man in a dark blue shade joined in, "and significant parts of the city, I might add," although they all knew none of them cared about that.

"Gentlemen," Gendo began his explanation, "The circumstances affected the situation. Despite the name, ECCO cannot control even a significant fraction of all the coincidences on Earth," Still, it controlled more than IGIGI were aware of...

"This is irrelevant," Lorenz Kiel interrupted. "Remember that the Human Acceleration Project is your primary duty."

"Of course," Gendo replied. Had he not devoted every waking moment of his life the past 12 years to realizing the Human Acceleration Project? He had forgone his son. He had, regretfully, neglected Rei. He had betrayed his love to his beloved Yui _twice_ with the Akagi family, and it was his _devotion_ they questioned? It was his _loyalty_ they should question (they most certainly did, he knew) not his devotion; the god they were to create with their own hands should know he was devoted.

"Do not think you are not expendable. There are others," Blue spoke harshly, as always.

"Yes, how does the construction of Dilmun go?" Gendo asked, trying to suppress a smirk "Please send my regards to Ms Avalon," he added, as an afterthought.

"Another woman you are planning to seduce, Ikari?" Red joked. "Our business with AvalonCorp is hardly the subject of this meeting; the Acceleration Project _is__,_" he said, leaning forwards for emphasis.

"We will consider your budget proposal. The committee will take over now."

The figures disappeared. All but one; Kiel still remained.

"You can't go back, Ikari," he added, as if they were old friends, or at least as if Gendo had been his protégé; a badly faked attempt at a warning, revealed by his blatant ulterior motives. Then he too disappeared.

Gendo Ikari took off his glasses and massaged his tired eyes; staring into the unblinking eye of myriads of lasers was rather painful, and he still hadn't gotten used to his new glasses; his somewhat weak myopia had worsened since last time he had bough new lenses, and now he had to adjust to a slightly sharper world-view. He could see things clearly now; he could see the future.

**The Ghost of Evangelion – Layer 03  
A Ghost in the Shell/Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic**

Shinji turned the handle of the door to his new classroom and swung it open. For a moment, he stared at the half-empty room and the groups and cliques that filled it, all clothed in either the teal-blue and white sailor-esque dress, or the same black/white (and how he had come to loathe that colour!) combination of trousers and shirts that he wore, with the exception of a muscular-looking, rowdy-haired student in a track suit. After Shinji's eyes had scanned the room, he decided he would pass discretely in through the door, not slamming it, and simply sit down on the nearest empty desk.

"Hello," a voice suddenly spoke to him, with a smiling face framed by long blue hair appeared directly in front of him._ There goes discretely…_

"…you must be Shinji Ikari," the female face said. A sudden feeling of uncertainty rose through Shinji. _Dis-cre-te-ly! _he repeated to himself. At least it was only one person.

"Y-yes!" he said hurriedly. _Oh dear was that too loud?_ Nobody even looked at him, except for the girl.

"In that case," she said, "Welcome to our class; I hope you'll make some friends!"

"Thank you …" Shinji hazarded a guess, his statement accidentally rising into a question, "…Class Rep?" The girl's smile widened.

"Temarei," she answered, "but I'm not the Class Representative," she said. _...I shouldn't have guessed!_ "...that would be Miss Hokari, over there," she said and waved in the direction of another girl, talking to the boy in the track suit. "Please, find a seat if you wish."

Shinji found a seat central in the classroom. It was not the best seat he could imagine, but the back row had already been taken by earlier birds. He wasn't even going to try the pleasant row by the windows; they were always taken early, and he wasn't going to get into an argument on his first day of school over seating arrangements.

The other Eva pilot (Misato had mentioned in passing that her name was 'Rei Ayanami') already sat in her seat and stared out through the windows, with her arm in a cast. Actually, he should try to talk with someone for once, and they already had something in common to talk about but… he didn't actually want to talk about that, and… well… _nah_. He didn't know what he'd say; he'd only make a fool of himself He could see it now; he tried to talk to her and all she would do was to frown say something like "What do you want?" or "Shut up." …maybe. Not worth the risk.

…

"Rise, bow!" the Class Rep ordered.

* * *

**ESAGILA ACADEMY FOR YOUNG STUDENTS, August 22****nd****, 2030  
**"…now, on May 15th 1932," the history teacher droned on, "radical elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy, aided by officers in the Imperial Japanese Army successfully attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Inukai…"

As the reverberating hum continued, Shinji nonchalantly flipped through the History book; he had actually already covered the Shōwa period in his previous school, a (one might even say 'another') prestigious school for the progeny of diplomats, politicians, plutocrats and other assorted filthy rich, and although he probably _should_ study it again (his grades hadn't been exceptional) he just couldn't be bothered to do so. Instead, he was making "independent studies" of the History book and Ayanami. _…erm, no._

_**Insert:**__ Although most historians place the start of the Fourth World War __**[**__footnote: alternatively known under the name "Second Vietnam War"__**]**__ in October 2015 when wars resulting from food shortages…_

The sound of fingers hitting a keyboard with great enthusiasm made Shinji cast a glance at the student next to him. Despite the total prevalence of standard neural interfaces in Shinji's class, all schoolwork was still done on laptops; a combination of widespread cyberbrain-hacking paranoia, preventive measures against Cyberbrain Closed Shell Syndrome and a desire to protect children against the horrors of the 'net meant very few of the aforementioned neural interfaces had Wireless Network Access nodes. Momentarily disturbed, Shinji went back to reading.

…_following the Impact Event [footnote: see Chapter 7.2_ 'The 2013 Tidal Disaster'_] broke out in the Indochinese Peninsula, some have chosen to place the cause of WWIV at the American Empire Fleet expedition into Antarctica and the subsequent People's Republic of China (PROC) annexation of Vietnam and Laos…_

* * *

Since the invention of computers, their processing power has, roughly, doubled every eighteenth months, an observation made by Gordon E. Moore, an Intel (a now defunct corporation, since their headquarters were nuked) co-founder in 1965, although he referred explicitly to transistor density, which is a rather outdated concept in this day and age.

It follows that if information can be processed at atrocious speeds, you need to feed that information into the processor at equally sacrilegious speeds, especially when _light itself_ takes a noticeable fraction of a second to travel from one side of the Earth to the other.

The 'net was fast.

Which was why Ishikawa cursed and swore at the seed-virus that had suddenly hit servers all over the World.

Someone, somewhere, had taken a seed-virus, loaded it up with sensitive images (like, say, Shinji Ikari being retrieved from Unit-01) and placed it in a "Toy Box" Trojan, disguised as, oh, those very same pictures of Shinji Ikari, and released the infectious image library all over the world. The images spread like wildfire, at the speed of human thought, setting neurons aflame, through the infosphere that joined everyone together, establishing itself in fresh neural pathways established three weeks earlier by images of a climactic battle between two giant monsters in the middle of Japan.

Needless to say, those images hadn't been possible to contain either.

It didn't help, at all, that news companies all over the world circumvented their respective press blackouts by exploiting various and numerous loopholes in the law. Japanese law, for example, couldn't restrict reporting on any story that had hit private sites, so all the press had to was to wait for the news to spread to a private server, and by "wait" Ishikawa really meant "leak it themselves," those bastards!

Had Shinji Ikari been an Ordinary High School Student (besides the whole "pilots giant robot" part) it might have been possible to subtly DDoS-attack the social networking sites he'd used and just pull his face off their servers while overwriting the allocated hard-drive space about five hundred times just to make sure, but no; Shinji Ikari was the son of Gendo Ikari, a Tachibana Labs shareholder and wealthy plutocrat, whose son's portrait occasionally appeared as boring filler in articles on his father's latest economic endeavours. Taking all those images down was a lost cause and, even if feasible, would _reek_ of government intervention; the idea (meme if you will) would still exist even if there was no proof, only reinforced by the cries of "Conspiracy!"

Ones which would, incidentally, have been eminently justified in this case.

Instead, Ishikawa used his Hunter-Killer viruses to give himself time to set a more realistic plan into action; a disinformation campaign that took advantage of modern advances in photo-manipulation. Counter-productively enough, he programmed a seed-virus to release the photos – _altered _photos, in which fake JPEG artifacts surrounded Shinji's face, while shadows fell slightly wrong; a trained-but-not-quite-trained-enough eye would conclude that Shinji Ikari's face had been superimposed on the photograph.

Releasing a second batch of photos with a different (fake) pilot altogether probably helped just as much.

* * *

**[Shinji Has Mail]  
** READ

FROM: asuka[dot]langely[dot]soryu[at]tannhauser[dot]bunderegierung[dot]de  
TO: ikari[dot]shinji[at]ecco[dot]mod[dot]go[dot]jp  
SUBJECT: Congratulations

Hello, Third Child

Congratulations on your first Rakbu kill. It's good to see that there are other people than me around who can fight the monsters. As an experienced pilot with years of piloting, I would be most pleased if you would tell me all about your experiences. I am looking forwards to meeting you.

Kindest regards,  
Asuka Langley Soryu, Second Child and Pilot of Unit-02

There was the unmistakable sound of chairs scraping against the floor, followed by rustling, as if class had ended in a disorganized fashion, (and if Shinji had learnt anything about Hikari Hokari, such a thing was not allowed to happen) despite it being in the middle of a boring history lesson. What had only moments ago been a near-complete silence, if not for the constant droning on about the rise of militarism during the Shōwa period during which he could sneak looks at Temarei's beautiful legs _…eh_ had been replaced by a loud chatter, of which he was both the centre and subject. _Wait, what?_

In one fell swoop, he was surrounded by an impenetrable wall of students (it would have been insulting to comment on their density, he felt), quite unlike the Wall of Jericho, as Hokari was unable to make the crumble back to their seats. _This isn't happening!_ Most of them had their mobile phones or HandyNAVIs out, pushing them into his face. _No no no!_ The pack grew denser and denser around him, until he was forced to stand. _Not now, not here, not ever…_

"Is this really you?" "How did you get picked?" "Was there some sort of test?"

"How are the controls like?" "Are there WALDOes?" "What are its weapons?"

"Be quiet! Show some respect! Class is still in session" …although that was more distant, in Hokari's voice; a few students hadn't stood up to squeeze the air out of him, for which he was eternally grateful, even if it made little difference.

"Pay attention to the teacher!" the Class Rep yelled through her teeth "You're being disrespectful," her face was burning scarlet and her firsts were clenched as she'd risen from her chair, or perhaps Shinji just imagined that, as he couldn't really see her through the mass of students. _There shouldn't be enough students –urk – left to even make a crowd!_

* * *

_Calamity. Noise. Disorder._

It was distracting and unnecessary, Rei thought. Although she stared out through the nearest window, she could still see their ghost-like reflections in the double glass, like a faint glass painting against the clear blue sky. _Although it will not be clear much longer._ Rei wasn't actually staring at the sky at the moment, despite the interesting patterns, unique-yet-recognizable, formed by the rawsilk-white clouds. Instead, she stared at the kaleidoscopic patterns of colour that occasionally formed the classroom windows, dancing back and forth, _but dancing is not the correct term_, broken into frames by the windowsills and adjoining pieces of wall.

Then Rei noticed the distorted mirror image of herself in the glass pane. _This is me. The new me. Same as old me?_ She stared into her own red eyes, looking down the lens of her reflection and into the artificial eye's active pixel sensor.

Her eyes widened. Momentarily.

She stared into the black abyss of her pupil, and found it staring back at her; sentient and self-aware. _That was not supposed to happen. _She blinked, once, and it was gone. _I am, but what am I?_

Rei immediately stared down into her desk and dropped her stylus. Smoke, _steam, actually, _rose from her fingers. Like a schizophrenic hallucination, the faintly white vapour ascended towards the ventilation ducts without anyone noticing – _This is probably not normal._

Class was over.

* * *

Shinji took a jab to the face. The full force of the blow pushed him off his feet. His head slammed into the outside wall of the school and he sank together on the grassy soil. A huge boy in a jumpsuit has just walked up to him and punched him in the face; _what was up with that?_ His attacker massaged his hand.

"Sorry, transferee," the large boy said "I had to punch you to be at peace with myself

Shinji cradled his bleeding nose, feeling blood flow down his arm and drip onto his shirt and the grass under him. The huge boy was flanked by a thinner, shorter boy in glasses. Right now he had taken them off to cover half his face half-heartedly with his hand.

"Toji…" the bespectacled boy began accusingly "he's their pilot; we're going to get into trouble for this!" he raised his head and smiled guiltily "and with those leaked images I sort-of-kind-of saved on my PDA…" He paused, sucking in a worried breath. "Oh dear, their suited men-in-black are coming over already…"

"That jerk hurt my sister!" the boy named Toji yelled to his friend, who cowered at the volume. Shinji staggered back onto his legs.

"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Shinji said and took a cross-punch to the chest. He could swear the impact sounded like a subdued car-crash. He squinted and saw another punch lined up. _Ouch._ He closed his eyes and braced himself poorly.

But it never came. He opened his eyes and saw Toji dangle a meter in the air, _oddly enough,_ looking terrified. There was a loud, reverberating humming, like electric power lines, and two giant grey spider tanks materialized out of thin air, one holding Toji up with its arms.

"Whoa!" the boy in glasses said, with mixed awe and terror.

"Put him down Tachikoma," an adult voice said. The owner was a JSDA soldier with a mullet. "Don't leave him hanging up in the air."

"But I caught a terrorist!" the urban-camouflaged tank said.

"He's not a terrorist," the soldier said exasperatedly. "At worst; he's a violence-prone delinquent. Now put him down."

"Okay…" the Tachikoma said, a disappointed whine entering its voice, but obliged. It carefully lowered the muscular boy onto the ground, letting go off his arms as soon as his feet rested safely on the grass.

The man turned to Toji and his friend.

"You're Toji Suzahara and Kensuke Aida, right?" he asked without acknowledging their replies "Go back to your classes. We'll send someone to talk to you later,"

They both heard the Self-Defence "We," (as opposed to the "Imperial 'We'" discarded 85 years earlier) and absconded in an intimidated manner.

"I'm Togusa," the man said and reached out a hand to help Shinji get his posture back.

"...nothing's going to happen to them, right?" Shinji asked through the flood of blood that emanated from his nose. "His sister got hurt in the battle and…"

"We might send his parents a harshly worded letter, if that's what you mean," Togusa replied.

* * *

A strong south wind blew across the bow of the JDS _Nagato_ before sweeping over the deck of her sister ship, the JDS_ Mutsu_. Both were flanked by the helicarriers JDS _Kaga_ and the JDS _Junyo. _The American contribution to this specific brick in the Pacific Wall was a _Zumwalt_-class destroyer, the IAS _Moorer_.

_Kaisō-chō _Heiya Kotanistood at the front deck of the _Nagato_ and watched the waves break against the sharp edge, dividing into trails of white foam, and leaving a wake of cold water behind the _Nagato_. Like her namesake, the _Nagato_-class missile destroyers were slightly aged, having been built after WWIII and used for peacekeeping in Korea in WWIV, but nonetheless some of the most advanced and powerful ships around, combining missile batteries with advanced sensors an AI for a network-centric vessel that could be run almost entirely without crew from a central computer in Kyosho if such were necessary.

She was a beautiful ship, and Kotani was proud to serve on it. He stared once more down into the waves, and _that was odd,_ he thought, as he gazed into the depths. The water was pitch black right below the bow of the ship, as if something was moving below it, but the Captain would have alerted them if there were any submarines, allied or otherwise, this close to their destroyer-group. He then spotted a faintly glowing red light in the middle of the black surface. It swept along his field of view, and he turned his head and saw that it was headed straight at the _Moorer_. He reached, for the lack of a better term, for the alarm-executable in his cyberbrain.

Before he'd navigated his way to it, all hell broke loose.

All possible alarms flared. The wind hit stronger, and the knife-like _Moorer_ bent and snapped in two at its middle, splintering and bleeding diesel and motor oil into the water. As the crippled halves sank into the cold sea with American sailors frantically swimming in the water, the _Junyo_'s stern was lifted out of the water in a fraction of a second. Kotani could swear he'd seen a _fucking tail_ throw it out of the water. What was this, the Kraken? Akkorokamui? Personnel were thrown overboard and the _Junyo_ dived bow-first into the water and toppled, giving Kotani a clear view of the crumpled stern hull.

He didn't have much more to think at that point, because a giant glowing tentacle burst up through the _Nagato_'s CIC. The bright white appendage ripped sideways out from the destroyer, tearing the hull into flakes. Like a deer in the headlights, Kotani could only watch as he fell off the deck (or rather, the deck fell with him) into the chilled water. He ducked his head under, ripping off his motor-oil-soaked uniform jacket while underwater; soon the oil-spill would light on fire, and he'd rather not burn.

He had to swim up to take another breath. When he surfaced, he watched the sea monster, a reddish-brown bug-like thing with tentacles rise vertically up through the innards of the _Mutsu_, boring a hole through the engine-room and command centre.

The monster kept on rising, as if it wasn't constrained by such petty laws like gravity; it seemed to hang, much like bricks don't. Then, as if attacking the destroyer group had just been its idea of a game, it curled together and stretched out towards mainland Japan, oblivious of the _Kaga_ peppering it with CWIS-fire and anti-air missiles. As each bullet hit, or rather, didn't, the creature blinked in primary colours against the blue sky, like a tasteless post-contemporary neon-painting. Soon, it was out of range, and Kotani swam towards a life-boat the _Kaga_ had deployed to pick up survivors.

* * *

The pale afternoon light reached in through the windows of the abandoned classroom, spreading outwards from each window it passed through like a reiterated macroscale double-slit experiment. The sharp contrast between shadow and light, projected on the floor and walls almost created a film-noir like feeling, helped by how washed-out everything seemed in the poor light. Shinji Ikari even wore black and while clothes with artistically applied blood, and the ventilation fan was, if not slow-turning, quite noisy.

The flow of blood emanating from his nose had eventually stopped, thanks to a seemingly ever-growing pile of discarded tissue papers that had been periodically dumped into a trashcan Togusa had dragged over to their conscripted table. Technically Shinji was supposed to attend an after-school club at this moment, but as he had recently transferred and hadn't been in any hurry to join any of them, he defaulted to the Go Home Club, and by then actually being _in school_, he was doing a lot better than all those other slackers, right? _Right…_

A pair of muscular men in black suits, eyes hidden behind large black sunglasses stood on either side of the only door to the classroom. Shinji felt assured that they wore those sunglasses even at night; their vision was augmented, he was certain. In either case, Togusa waved them off, and they demonstratively took up the exact same positions on the other side door. Shinji slurped the last of his canned green tea, letting the relaxing-yet-energizing (and how _did _that work?) astringent caffeine-and-polyphenol mixture warm his body.

"So you pilot a giant robot," Togusa said with the tone of voice that made his surprise at Shinji's age clear.

Shinji looked away. "It was really only that one time," he said "…according to Mis – _Captain_ Katsuragi, they have other pilots with more experience. I just happened to be available," Shinji said, trying to deflect any further questions, or at the very least dodge them.

"What do you need the giant robots for?" Togusa asked. _To ruin my life,_ Shinji thought. It took him a small fraction of milisecond to realize that he was actually a legal employee of ECCO now, and 'you' therefore referred to the organization as a whole.

"I don't know," he answered plainly. He wished for another can of tea. It was as if the air had suddenly gone colder. It probably had, actually; he could hear the howling of the wind now, blowing into the city from the sea.

"How are you coming along with the other pilots?" Togusa asked.

"Very well," Shinji replied, trying to keep the bitterness he felt about the whole subject out of his voice, and failing, "we're in a perfectly harmonic state of mutual obliviousness," Which wasn't exactly _true_, Shinji realized, but close enough.

There were no further questions, and Shinji spent a few minutes trying to wring the last precious drops of green tea from the can, while at the same time trying not to cut his tongue on the sharp metal edges; he'd bled enough for one day, he thought.

Togusa looked away and let a mildly annoyed sigh escape under his breath, too subdued to really be heard. Shinji Ikari seemingly knew _nothing_ about ECCO, their giant robots or their enemies, which consequently made asking (because this was certainly not an informal interrogation) him about it a rather futile task. Hopefully the Major and Ishikawa were finding their investigations somewhat easier.

There were three rapid knocks on the door to the not-that-empty classroom, and the door swung open, revealing Rei Ayanami. Her pale skin was almost unnaturally white in the light, only distinguished by the contrast to the truly white bandages on her right arm and her school uniform. She headed straight for Shinji.

"There has been an alert," she said flatly "Follow me. I'll go on ahead,"

Then, before she'd even verified that Shinji had understood or even caught her message, she turned and left. Togusa found himself on the receiving end of a cyberlink call.

"Togusa, get Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami over here immediately," Maj. Kusanagi said.

* * *

With the possible exception of the capital city/region/fucking _island_ Kyosho, Ashigarashimo District was the most well-defended geographical location in Japan. The district was a veritable fortress, surrounded by military bases and airfields. Destroyed and sunken cities served as uninhabited buffers that could be destroyed without repercussions, while the numerous mountains and lakes would hinder the mobility of anything with the magnitude of a Rakbu.

To outside observers, the Chinese certainly, it might look less like a series of defences and more like preparations for war. The fake skyscrapers hiding missile batteries certainly looked suspect, although the Japanese Government had made a press release stating they were not intended for use in combat, and therefore not in violation of the Geneva Conventions. It didn't quite help their credibility that they'd also hollowed out hills and filled them with even more missile batteries. Short of invading Korea or bringing nukes into the country (and in the name of all that is good and holy, some of the right-wing militarists wanted that too!) there was little the state of Japan could to avoid accusations of a second Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere under the iron fist of the Imperialist American devils. Thanks to cybernetic enhancements and general medical advances, survivors from the first Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere were still alive to keep the old wounds open, and by default, those aging centenarians had lived through WWIII and WWIV too, and with those the resulting American peacekeeping (though many preferred the less politically correct term "occupation")

On the other hand, actually being attacked by the enemy the defences had been built for in the first place helped loads.

Being attacked twice was a particularly nasty godsend.

"Target in sight, Air Boss," 2nd Lt. Poole transmitted back to the _Philip Mead _as his F/A51 caught the alien on its radar. "Weapons are locked and we're ready to fire,"

"You're gonna have to wait for JASDF clearance," 'Air Boss' Gen. Duane K. Patrick replied over the distributed cyberlink.

Two flights of AEN F/A51 fighter swept over the seas towards the hovering Rakbu. In their minds, they also tracked the positions of a flight of Japanese ATF29s. Both groups of fighter aircraft were bound to intercept the alien invader at approximately the same time, not that it really mattered when an F/A51 could shoot beyond the horizon, had they been fitted with long-distance missiles, which they hadn't. Instead, some Pentagon officer had boarded the ship and insisted that napalm and fragmentation missiles were used against the alien fuckers. On one hand, he looked like a typical ground-locked pencil-pusher, so what did he know? On the other hand, his uniform sleeve patch read 'Defence: Extraterrestrial and Alien Threats' so what _did_ he truly know?

"Target is flying dangerously low; cherub-two!" 2nd Lt. Poole reported, using military aviator jargon to refer to heights, in hundreds of feet, below 1000 "and it's over the city"

"JASDF reports the area as low-risk; we've marked your map," an AEN Operator android reported.

"Okay pilots, listen up!" Air Boss shouted over the cyberlinks, "We've just received confirmation from the Japanese; Operation Tsubasa is 'go', so engage target at will!"

* * *

Ninurta floated quite comfortably, although buoyancy had little to do with it, when the first wave of napalm struck. The missiles exploded against its carapace and scattered burning petrol-jelly all over its reddish-brown back. The nearby towers of stone the pest-like humans had constructed everted itself and spat out shooting stars (for what else could it be?) at the Rakbu. Ninurta banked and let the AA-missiles strike the AT-field enhanced hard shell ineffectually. Did the killer apes really think glorified archery was any threat at all to a _god_? The Messenger had been a fool; how could you reason with that which could not comprehend or understand?

With one fell swoop, it sliced the top off the anti-air fortification. The concrete and metal top ground against the remaining bottom, releasing heaps of concrete dust as it slid down. Once it had come halfway, it tipped and smashed against another abandoned building. Soon thereafter, it fell towards the ground, steel, concrete and plaster crumpling against the ground under its own weight.

Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean and Indochinese refugees watched as the huge clouds of dust were whipped up and out through the streets from the truly uninhabited areas of old Odawara. Debris shot out as metal beams were wrung and twisted into unnatural positions. Parents hoisted their children up on their arms, and wrists were grabbed and dragged away from the approaching battle. The refugees had all lived through WWIV, and the older had lost parents or friends to WWIII; running away from warzones was near-instinctual to them.

Once more the speakers sounded over Ashigarashimo: "Today, a special state of emergency has been declared throughout the Kanto and Chubu districts around the Tokai Area. Please take refuge in your designated shelter."

There was just one problem. The refugees didn't _have_ a designated shelter that wasn't neck-deep in polluted water.

* * *

"Awwww…" Kensuke complained, "There's a big battle again and I have to go and get locked up in a shelter." Laboriously, he dragged himself along with the rest of the school towards their shelter

"It's better than staying up here," Toji retorted "Last time they practically nuked the city twice to get that thing," he said, looking between rows of houses directly into the heart of Odawara, where recently abandoned construction machines repaired the massive damage to the buildings at Ground Zero. "Stupid pilot," he muttered

"I'm still of the opinion that the second giant explosion was caused by the giant monster, not the JSDA," Kensuke said, pushing his glasses back up on the bridge on his nose. _That's it, I'm getting optics when I turn 16,_ he though. ..._if I can afford it,_ was the unpleasant afterthought. "Besides," he un-digressed, "if they use nuclear-grade weapons in the city, I might not survive." Nuclear bunkers were, after all, not built to withstand direct nuclear impacts, something he had spent quite some time explaining to his classmates before Class Rep Hokari had shut him up, citing 'morale considerations', and, more unofficially, 'you're being annoying'.

"I just want to get one clear look before I die!" Kensuke said, loud enough for emphasis, but not loud enough to pull attention from people not in the conversation, except maybe Hokari or Temarei, but they heard _everything._

"Stop being so melodramatic," Toji ordered as they stopped, for some reason or the other, right before the entrance to the underground shelter. "You're not going to die,"

"Besides," Toji continued as they waited for an explanation for why they were standing outside in a potential warzone while there were perfectly fine and not-too-uncomfortable and not to mention _warm_ shelters just waiting to be occupied at the bottom of a flight of stairs "...if what you want is a better look, why don't you just ask your _girlfriend__,_" he said, emphasising the word mockingly, "for some high-res photos from her father?"

"She's _not_ my girlfriend!" Kensuke protested.

Ignoring the vehement objections, Toji continued teasingly: "Or is it because every time you're around her, there's something else you'd rather see?" he asked and made crude, cup-like motions with his hands. Kensuke just frowned and faked a pout.

"What are we waiting around here for, anyway?" Toji asked after a while. _It's cold, damnit!_

"If you'd been listening," a female voice said. It belonged to Nell Fubuki, a loner girl who had been sitting in the back row of their classroom for three years, "you'd have heard that refugees have occupied the school's shelter," she said dryly, "so now we have to walk across the city to find an available shelter," she sighed and impolitely nudged Kensuke in the direction they'd come from. "Now get going before the Class Rep chews us all out,"

* * *

The ECCO Combat Information Centre was bustling with life, or its android equivalent. Bustling with _activity_ was probably a more accurate and general descriptor, all in all. Once more, rows upon rows were filled with android military-grade Operators in brand new auxiliary JSDA uniforms; the human staff had likewise received their own sets of tan and olive-green uniforms, except for 2nd Lt. Maya Ibuki, who wore her C.B.C.M. uniform, and Cpt. Katsuragi, who wore skivvies, with the sole military addition her beret, cocked at a rather non-regulation jaunty angle. Truly, what male or curious female could deny her that right, with her shorts leaving much of her legs exposed and hugging tightly around her? Granted, the uniform statistics were skewed from the most likely distribution somewhat by the absence of Gendo Ikari, who couldn't be there to insist on arriving wearing only an anonymous, black suit and further increase the standard deviation.

"We have visual confirmation of the target. It has entered the refugee district."

The hideous visage of the giant vermin appeared on the main screen, alternating angles between a number of surveillance and recognizance drones released to gather intelligence, though Misato suspected the Rakbu, in fact, had none at all, much like non-neglible proportions of the JASDF high command. On the screen, the Tactical Staff and the token Scientific representatives could clearly see how the Rakbu used its long tentacles to strike missiles out of the air long before they could hit. The few that passes its point defences exploded harmlessly against its reddish-brown carapace.

"Fortifying city in t-minus three, two, one…"

All over Ashigarashimo, especially in Yugawara and Manazuru, giant mechanical and hydraulic locks slid out of their holes, detaching buildings from their foundations and leaving them to rest on giant hydraulic slave-pistons. Hydraulic fluid was pumped out of giant reservoirs, dropping the towering skyscrapers deep into the ground over select places; it was an experimental system exclusive to Ashigarashimo District, built after WWIII when the cities were potential candidates for the position of capital city; the variable profile was supposed to lessen the impact of nuclear strikes by lowering the total surface area of the buildings, but the cost in structural integrity had been deemed too high, and the system had been left as a relic of interwar paranoia.

"The central block and districts 1 through 7 have been housed,"

Captain Misato Katsuragi stood, arms folded, in her command position and awaited the launch order; she hadn't expected the second Rakbu to be capable of flight; the First Rakbu had been humanoid, just like all encountered Anunnaki, _but I don't have to think about that now, not ever._ Her mind should be on the task; how to command Unit-01 against the second Rakbu. Then again, what could stop her from getting her sweet, sweet revenge?

"Am I just going to sit here?" Shinji complained from Unit-01.

"We're just awaiting a launch order from the JSDA, Shinji," Misato replied "Please be patient."

Misato leaned over the edge of the command floor and shouted down at Maj. Kusanagi: "Hey, Major! Why are you here? Shouldn't the JSDA have deployed already?"

Maj. Kusanagi leant back and twisted her head, looking back up at Cpt. Katsuragi. "Firstly, my unit are security forces," she replied, "not combat forces," _But you're Special Forces!_ Misato thought, "…and secondly," Maj. Kusanagi mumbled something; all Misato caught was 'embarrassing', "I've been relieved of its command pending an investigation into my behaviour as an officer,"

"What?" was all Cpt. Katsuragi could reply; it was somewhat hard to believe.

"It turns out the top brass weren't too happy about my attempted ghosthack of a child," the Major explained, her tone as artificially neutral as her body, "so until the unofficial investigation reaches a verdict on whether ghosthacking Shinji Ikari was 'excessive use of force,' or not, I'm an overqualified courier."

_Well, that makes sense…_ "Where's that damn launch order!?" Misato shouted. "We should have deployed a long time ago!"

She looked up at Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki. He was on the phone, probably asking just the same question. He put his hand over the microphone and looked at the big screen, where the second Rakbu twisted impossibly fast in the air and launched itself at an AEN F/A51, slicing it in two with a tentacle.

"The Ministry of Defence has turned the responsibility for Operation Tsubasa over to the JASDF," Fuyutsuki reported. "What a waste of taxpayer money," he added mostly to himself.

* * *

A fragmentation missile struck Ninurta's soft thorax. The cutting, high-velocity shards of metal cut into its legs. Pain shot through the Rakbu's body, and it shuddered. The charring heat of the gelatinous napalm left charred smudges on its carapace as it slid down the frictionless AT field. Hundreds of tiny metal fragments had embedded themselves in the hard shell on its back; harmless, but painful every time they struck, wedging and cutting closer and closer to the soft insides. Its tentacles ached. Perhaps… Perhaps it was not as strong as it thought it was.

Perhaps it had been wrong to take to the skies; the AT field it needed to sustain its flight demanded qualia that it could have used to fight with, and the black-haired people were better warriors than expected. It twisted itself around and swept an elongated tentacle out at an ATF29, cutting off its wing. A missile struck it between the thick carapace of its back and the thinner frontal armour, wedging itself between the armour plates and exploding. Three of Ninurta's many legs were blown straight off. Quite a lot of blood (better described as ichor) and disgusting juices were scattered over a nearby building.

The words Ninurta used to describe this had never been recorded on cuneiform tablets.

In pain, it lashed out at a boresighting fighter jet. The white-hot tentacle stretched around, behind its back, and by intuition, it stabbed upwards. The thick appendage stabbed the pilots head, vaporizing it in an instant. With the pilot and most of his neural interface gone, the F/A51 dived without changing course. 20 tons of dead-weight aircraft crashed into the Rakbu, quite painfully; the first hit that really mattered.

Having the F/A51 light on fire and explode, halfway inside Ninurta mattered just as much. Like a burning wreck, it fell towards the ground, where it could be safe and recuperate.

* * *

"Captain Katsuragi," Fuyutsuki called "you have full command over this situation. The Ministry of Defence demands that we dispatch Unit-01 immediately."

"They're more obnoxious than the aliens!" Misato commented. "I'd have mobilized even if they hadn't asked!" The Captain thrust her still biological hand onto a fingerprint scanner, removing the last lock on the Unit-01 launch procedure. It had already been locked to the mass driver frame, which was as far as Misato had been willing to push against the constraints of the "no-launch" order. The plastic cover slid off and Cpt. Katsuragi flipped the molly guard that remained as the last barrier between her index finger and sweet, sweet revenge. "Launch in t-minus zero seconds! Launch!"

At that, Shinji was forced down into his seat by four-and-a-half times his own weight once more. He could feel the blood rush from his head and down to into his legs, only to be stopped by the tight g-suit that clasped around his legs and abdomen. Again, he wanted to vomit, and again, he couldn't. Blood rushed back into his head. _Why do I even bother doing this?_ He asked himself. _My father isn't even here!_ he reminded himself. ..._and why do I even care if he's here or not? It doesn't matter,_ he concluded. _Right?_

The Eva-frame slammed hard against the top of the lift. Shinji likewise slammed up against his five-point seat-belt. Couldn't they have made launch a less painful procedure? The door slid open, and re-rendered sunlight flooded the Entry Plug unsurprisingly like an artificial sunrise. He lifted his rifle to his shoulder, manually locking the trackpoint to the crosshairs, and took a step out, sweeping the Eva-rifle from side to side. Two weeks of training had taught him _something_, at least.

The Rakbu was straight ahead of him, half dragging, half hovering towards him, standing on its pygidium like a praying mantis, tentacles raised for combat. Shinji took aim and fired. A three-round burst slammed the rifle into his, or rather the Eva's, shoulder, and three shells slammed against Ninurta's AT field, scattering a monochrome field of noise into the air. Another three rounds bursts forth, into the cloud of snow and artillery smoke. And another burst. And another.

"Idiot, you've covering the enemy in smoke!" Misato yelled. Shinji depressed the trigger. He hyperventilated, _I got it, right?_ "Control your fire! Don't squander shells!"

The Rakbu was covered in a pillar of dust-grey smoke, like a burning pile of something nasty. While Shinji couldn't see anything, ECCO CIC had linked UAV surveillance drones to smaller CIC screens. To their horror, the Rakbu still stood unharmed. "Shinji, move out of–"

A glowing tentacle burst from the pillar of smoke and sliced at Shinji, and missed. As he took a step backwards, his gun fell apart in his hands, cut to pieces by something ultra-thin. A nearby building's top half slid of the bottom half onto the street, crumbling to dust and debris as it hit the ground. Seconds later, two tentacles cut through the remaining steel frame like it was a pen against a pair of particularly sharp swords. The rest of the Rakbu shot out of its dust-cloud, ramming Shinji in his chest. The 500 ton giant fell backwards, denting the road as it hit.

"Shinji, get back up!" Misato yelled, over the cyberlink. "Shinji, please, get back up!"

Ninurta towered over the fallen Eva, blocking out the sun with its hideous head. Shinji watched as it floated on top of him, dwarfing even Unit-01 with its sheer length. _Oh no…_ A tentacle burst forth. It wrapped itself around his neck and shoved Unit-01 headfirst into a nearby building, then slammed him to the ground. Shinji yelped at the pain that shot up his entire body. _Oh please no…_

"Shinji, get up, please!" he heard, vaguely.

* * *

"It's not going very well for the new guy," Kensuke declared, as he watched the battle through the zoom of his mobile phone/PDA/camera. "He's losing already!"

"Then let's get underground," Toji suggested, dragging Kensuke by his collar. The Esagila Academy-students had zig-zagged between shelters, trying to find available room; the shelters had been built soon after WWIII, not expecting the following population boom, nor the industrialization of Ashigarashimo, and especially not the millions of refugees who had (non-violently) stormed and occupied all available space. There was always space for a handful of students, but the Esagila Academy numbered in the low hundreds, leaving the older students to walk back and forth between supposedly vacant shelters. Right now, they had walked up the hills towards Hakone, which was further from the refugee centres and less likely to overpopulated.

It also gave Kensuke a nice view of the battle, but since they had been led up the hill by Hikary Hokari and Tomoe Temarei, this was probably unintentional. And required that you use a value of "probably" which included "not a chance in hell" to get that concession.

Through his camcorder, Kensuke watched the Rakbu lash out against Unit-01 and grab it once more by the neck. Its long appendages lifted the 500 ton Type 36 "Evangelion" ignoring such petty conventions as "centre of mass" and "classical mechanics" and tossed it in a high arc against the nearest mountain.

Which happened to be quite close to where Toji, Kensuke and the rest of their class stood.

_Oh crap…_

* * *

Shinji Ikari arced through the air, quite comfortably actually, when compared to the impact against the asphalted hillside, fortunately not cushioned on soft, crackling classmates. They had pulled away, or been pulled away, once they saw where he was headed. Still, landing _really_ hurt, damnit!

"Shinji Ikari," he heard the less-familiar voice of Maj. Kusanagi shout, "watch yourself. There are unevacuated civilians in the area."

"Shinji," the voice of Dr Akagi continued, from where the Major had left off, "your umbilical cord has been detached; you only have five minutes of operational power left." In his peripheral vision, he could see a timer count down in digital numbers, counting hundreds of seconds at a rate, in a shocking show of innovation, of one second per second.

"Shinji, pull back to the nearest power bus," Misato shouted "we've requested a joint JSDA/JASDF attack to cover your retreat!"

Shinji leant forwards, trying to gather his senses. Or maybe it was Unit-01 doing that; he wasn't really sure anymore. He stood up, watching his terrified and/or cheering classmates through the artificially transparent Entry Plug. _Something about retreating…_

* * *

Kensuke Aide watched the _really awesome_ Evangelion-unit from a perfect frog angle. He was close; really close. In fact, even _he_ didn't really consider standing so close he could feel hydraulic oil drip down a safe position. When Toji grabbed his shirt, he happily ran along with him.

"Did you see that!?" he asked, as if a giant 40m robot was a sight that could be ignored "It just stood back up again!" _Pant_ "It was airborne!" _Wheeze_ "And it stood back up again!"

Toji dragged him harder "Just shut up, just shut up," he mumbled and yelled at the same time, if such a thing is possible. His sister – he couldn't forget what had happened to his sister. _Just run!_ he thought as Ninurta rose over the horizon, in all his godlike glory, burning red against the greying blue sky.

* * *

"Retreat, Shinji!" Misato shouted as Shinji's blood, flowing from his nose, danced around the cockpit, like a thin but visible smoke, slowly tinting the crystal-clear LCL with a deathly red shade. In his groggy state of mind, it almost seemed more natural that way.

"Shinji Ikari," he heard someone transmit, "we've sent an armoured patrol to secure your classmates. You need to pull the field of battle away from them."

_Ooooh,_ was all Shinji could think through the pain "…pull back Shinji," What should he do? _I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away!_ The Rakbu stood there, like it was awaiting a mere demigod's first move. He couldn't let civilians come to harm again… "Shinji, pull yourself together!" _I mustn't run away, I can't, I just can't run away… _He had to protect- "SHINJI! Retreat! That's an O-R-D-E-R!" _Mustn't… Su gish-sha ni di-dam… _he thought, _wait, that can't be… _He looked down on his retreating classmates, then back at the glowing red core of the Rakbu. _Damiq dayyanutum-a maru._

* * *

Ninurta swung its twin tentacles towards Unit-01. As it was about it wrap one of them around the Eva's throat, a white gauntlet shot up and clasped around the glowing limb, forcing it away and bending it painfully. The other flexible line-segment of incandescent light impaled Unit-01 through the armoured torso, bursting out through the rear neck armour and looping back into Unit-01's head. All Shinji felt was pain.

Nearby, on the ground, Toji hauled a cowering Kensuke as far away as he could. A giant, glowing tentacle cut down towards him and he jumped back, dragging Kensuke with him. The white-hot mass-of-Rakbu sliced down into the concrete, flopping up and down, making mince-meat of the asphalt and soil beneath.

"Shinji, you're disobeying a _direct order_!" Misato tried, then: "Please Shinji, pull back; you've only got a few minutes remaining!"

All she received back was an ear-pitching scream.

Unit-01 deployed its knife, a large carbon-steel blade the weight of a small car and the length of a telephone pole. Frantically, Unit-01 swept at Ninurta's apparent face, while a tentacle burrowed through its skull. Then, it thrust towards the Rakbu's red, crystalline core, slicing through the thick, or perhaps it was thin, relatively, flesh and carapace like it was made from paper. Unit-01 stabbed up harder and harder into the vital organ, trying to burst through it and the spine behind, assuming Ninurta even had a spine.

Then, Unit-01 ran out of power, and Shinji's body felt limp as power died in Unit-01's augmented muscles and the synchronization faded. The internal screens went black, showing only token diagnostics. **[EMERGENCY LIFE SUPORT ACTIVATED]** as the strongest source of light, and all he could hear was the sizzling sound of his own, Unit-01's, flesh being burnt to a black char.

Then, it all stopped.

* * *

Toji watched as the giant alien monster stopped the incandescent glowing. Its tentacles slid out of Unit-01 hand, head and torso. A thick, un-blood-like red fluid poured from the monster's chest, spraying the giant robot's hand in the unknown fluid. Drops of the stuff were dripping from the giant knife.

"Kensuke," he said, quietly, "it's dead; the giant monster is dead!"

Kensuke was hyperventilating and cowering in a near-foetal position. Toji was doing pretty much the same thing, but had looked up when the sounds died out. They had been in the middle of a giant robot battle, against alien invaders from space, like some bad sci-fi movie, and they were alive, like the male comic relief pair. Except there was nothing funny about this, Toji thought. It was quite possibly the worst thing he had ever experienced.

Unit-01 slumped together, sliding down the hill under its own weight. It stopped when it hit a building, and what remained of the rear hatch popped. It creaked and screamed as hydraulic pistons fought metal wrung into unnatural positions. With a deathly scream, it half-slid, half-fell open, revealing a badly damaged cylinder. The transferee, Ikari-or-something climbed out, seemingly lost.

Then he vomited.

LCL, breakfast, lunch and a can of green tea burst forth from Shinji's oesophagus, leaving a foul taste in his mouth. He was shaking, and breathing unnaturally, and hurting, and afraid, and terrified, and lonely and a thousand other feelings and emotions he couldn't even name, all at once. He settled for wandering and staring aimlessly at nothing at all, before crawling up into a foetal position. Foetal positions were safe. He wanted to feel safe. Also, he wanted to talk to his father. Right now, all he wanted was a phone.

The JSDA arrived minutes later with an ambulance.


	4. Layer 04: REI v10 Reflections of a close

**The Ghost of Evangelion – Layer 04**  
**A Ghost in the Shell/Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover**

**ESAGILA ACADEMY FOR YOUNG STUDENTS, July 31st, 2030**  
"Wait, Ayanami is still here?" someone said, with non-sarcastic astonishment. A quiet (this was the Literary Club, after all) whisper ran through the assembly of bibliophiles, occasionally breaking into actual speech. To them, this was a totally unexpected situation; Rei Ayanami had not attended a single club meeting, save the two first, since the beginning of the academic year, three-and-a-half months ago except possibly a few minutes each week to pick out a new book. This was, of course, discounting the interterm school break, a week-long token holdover from when the mid-July-to-late-August period of the year had been the warmest time of year, too warm to spend time inside a badly ventilated school building. In present day, that period of the year was much cooler, some would say uncomfortably so, and the Teachers Union had successfully pushed to shift the school year around in accordance with the new tides and times.

In fact, even though her name was on their official list of members (despite their best efforts), she had not been considered a member for the last three months.

"So, you've decided to finally attend, for once?" the Club President, one Upperclassman Jijuu Kishi, asked rhetorically, though Rei had no intention to let it stay rhetorical.

"By necessity," she answered flatly "I have to leave earlier than usual today." she continued cryptically; today was a special day, Commander Ikari had told her, and she would have to be at the ECCO GeoFront before the after-school clubs ended. Therefore, she would not have time to take the train back home and instead stayed at school until the Commander could pick her up. _I should perhaps explain that part,_ Rei though to herself.

"Well then, Ayanami, why don't you tell us about the central themes in the books you've been reading lately? We haven't heard much from you," asked Nene Hosokawa, the head librarian, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Rei looked up from her book and considered the question.

"I am not certain I understand the exact symbolic nature of the, quote: 'Nipponese-eating lizards,' unquote, in this book." she said without a hint of interest, then flipped the page and returned to her reading.

* * *

As time passed, the sun hung lower and lower in the school-ground-facing classroom, and for each new page Rei read, the light from the window she sat next to crept further and further out towards the edges of the leaves. As she finished the last page (of the actual content; the advertisements went on for a few more pages) she spotted, from the corner of her eye, a jet-black German-produced car pull up to the gate of the Academy. Dutifully, she stood up and reached up for a new book, before approaching Hosokawa.

"Two books Ayanami?" Hosokawa asked as her eyes mechanically darted over the barcodes. "Oh, you're returning this one," she corrected herself as she took it from Rei's outstretched hand. She mumbled something about it being shockingly underdue, then reflexively looked upwards as she opened the browser that connected her to the Lit-Club's library database. "Well, in that case, only one book, Ayanami?" Hosokawa corrected herself, quizzically raising an eyebrow and smiling a little at the unexpected modesty as she handed the volume over.

This attitude was entirely typical in Rei's experience. There seemed to be something about librarians which made them plumb the depths of vitriol towards those people who removed books from the shelves and read them. _No Ayanami, I can't let you borrow more than three books at once; other people might want to read a few of them,_ she had said on a previous occasion, the blue-haired girl recalled.

"Thank you," she said quietly, as she leapt towards the window and waved at the Commander. _The genres and styles of these exact books…_ she had answered in return,_…are inconsistent with the likes and enjoyed genres of all other Literary Club members, Miss Hosokawa._

Rei slipped the book down into her laptop bag and walked hurriedly out of the designated Lit-Club classroom and towards the stairs._'It's a matter of principle, Ayanami.'_ She was not alone in the corridor; her classmate, Temarei, was walking in the opposite direction, most likely with a Student Council errand.  
_'…it is a principle that I, exclusively, am not allowed to borrow more than three books?'_ she might have responded, in the would-have-beens of a long-past conversation. But she had not, and so would not ever. The time had passed.

"Oh, Ayanami!" Temarei said as they passed each other "I was meaning to ask you; will you join Hikari and me after school today?" Temarei lifted the blue hair-bangs from her own eyes, and smiled. Soon _an imperfect measure of time_, as the weather got colder, and the winter-uniforms' long sleeves would cover the seams in her arms leaving her hair as the only (ambiguous) indication of her partial cyberization.

"I cannot," Rei responded, and subtly tried to indicate that someone was waiting for her.

"Oh, don't be like that Ayanami!" Temarei said "I bet there's a really fun girl wrapped up in that shell of yours, just dying to get out!"

"…" was Rei's only response. (Or rather, a lack thereof, as silence is not audible.)

* * *

Commander Gendo Ikari stood, in his tailor-fit black suit, in the middle of the Esagilia Academy's schoolgrounds. South-west of him rested the large block-like building, a hollowed square brick with a smaller amputated, equally hollow wing stretching on southwards. He was flanked on one side by a large but narrow swimming hall, the track field and the sports fields, and on his other side by the Botany Club's enormous garden; a spectrum of natural (and occasionally unnatural, whenever the biology-inclined students got to buy seeds) colours imported from all over the world. If Yui Ikari had seen the garden, she would have found to be like out of her daydreams, designed and built according to her fragmented specifications. After all, it was. Gendo Ikari owned the school.

Once Rei had hurriedly reached the Commander, they walked over to his private car. Rei's eyes widened when the driver rolled down the reflective windows, revealing herself.

"Why is Captain Katsuragi driving?" she asked. It was a reasonable question.

"Well Rei, today is a big day," the Captain explained, as she electronically popped the rear doors "Everyone in Scientific and Tactical are positively excited about this!" she continued as she pulled the car onto the main road "Even Ritsuko…" she continued "Well, Rits… Rits gives me chances of success with too many zeroes, but I've known her for such a long time I can tell that she's excited too, even if she hides it behind pessimism." _Understandably._ "…besides, the Commander has an _awesome_ car!" Misato continued, letting the engine roar as she waited at an intersection.

"But there are an infinite number of zeroes in any given number," said Rei. "How can there be too many?"

The Captain paused. "Too many zeroes after the decimal point, I mean," she corrected herself, recalling why she tried not to get into conversations with Rei.

"That is an interesting point. As the chance of success is a real number, the probability is incalculably large that it, too, contains aleph-zero zeroes after the..."

"Rei, it's a very small chance."

"Oh."

Rei was not relieved.

* * *

The _Evangelion_ Unit-00 Prototype Unit, a genetically engineered nano-cyber-pharmaceutically augmented bioroid, to use the technical term, had been lowered into a vertical shaft of water. The white, rust-proof-painted shoulders and the white, wedge-like head, with its two giant lenses; a red frontal one and a green on the top, was above the water. It was surrounded by a floating walkway bolted to its shoulders. The head had been peeled open, like a skull split by a giant axe while redundant armour-plates slid away to give access to the artificial cerebellum. A cluster of cables coiled up from the brainstem and reached towards the giant cyberbrain-like titanium shell that contained an artificial neural network, suspended from the ceiling by a crane.

Rei watched as the ECCO technicians lowered the neurocomputer into Unit-00's shell. There was a loud hiss when pneumatic locks secured it to the vertebra and neck structure, almost deafening out Dr Akagi's bemoans for careful handling. One by one, the unfolded internal carbon-fiber armour-plates folding back in like a blossoming flower in reverse. Lastly, the face tilted back, lifting its gaze, _though it has no such thing_, Rei thought, upwards, until it stared right at her, uncannily.

Rei looked at her own reflection, a dark shade of her own paleness against the iris of the red eye, surrounded by the inscription of the optician who had made the prosthetic eye. Her proportions and angles were warped by the slight curvature, stretched over the darkness that allowed the reflection in the first place. What would she look like from the other end of that mirror, seen through a lens darkly?

She did not know.

Rei made her way to the white-on-white Entry Plug, which protruded from the neck of Unit-00. In its weird symbiosis with the Eva, it was just as likely that it also intruded, to complicate the terms. Rei climbed into the cylinder, a dark pool of clear LCL lit only by bluish LEDs. Without offering it a synapse of thought, she let the cold fluid seep into her lungs while she interfaced herself with the Prototype Unit.

Her thoughts turned inwards.

"…connecting the Outer Receptors" Dr Akagi said somewhere distant in the centre of Rei's mind, ending the introspection. She let go of her thoughts, and felt the sensory input flow into her, crossing the barriers between the two minds, where there should only have been one.

Rei remembered, _she was walking towards her school. The tall buildings around her towered against the bright-white sky. All the colours were pale, washed out in the dull light. She reached an intersection and waited at the red light in a crowd. She wasn't the only student from her school there; the plain school uniform could be seen interspersed in the crowd, greyscale spots in a patternless background of colours. Wouldn't the fucking light change soon?_

"Initiating Second Layer" 2nd Lt. Ibuki said.

The interactions of two cyberbrains are perhaps best represented a pair of fractal fields representing abstract mathematical calculations and transformations, each fractal layer revealing new complexities. It became almost pointless to imagine their interactions in only three dimensions, once the neural networks of pair of minds shot cubic packets of information back and forth between the sleep/wake centres of the brain and the ventral tegmental system. The visual space exploded hyperdimensionally between the two self-propagating electric fields, shaped to fit the neural networks they inhabited. Even when the functions of the human brain could be augmented with comprehensible mathematics and programming, and something as elusive as memories be converted to a standardized file, (ignoring the fact that there were at least two functionally indistinguishable but incompatible file systems) the brain as a whole remained as incomprehensible as it was when Egyptian priests dissolved it in wine and threw it away to preserve the shell of dead Egyptian kings.

Finally, _the lights changed and she could cross. On each side of the intersection two crowds merged, joined, and almost seamlessly split as if they had never met or even interacted. A random stranger, _though little is random, _handed her a facial tissue wrapped in plastic, for no reason. Odd._

_"Hey," a younger kid about Rei's age called "Mind if I hit on you?"_

"Prepare for the Third Layer" Dr Akagi ordered. The flow of data between the two abstractions had increased in magnitude, and the effective distance between Rei's ghost and the other cyberbrain was shortening as predicted as the half-dive continued.

"Counting down to Absolute Borderline," Maya reported from her dive station, "Zero-point-nine, zero-point-eight, zer-"

_She ignored the brat and shoved him out of the way. Sweet droplets scattered over her face and her sleeve felt moist. The little shit has spilled his soft-drink on her! She reached for the paper handkerchief_ events come into existence because they are prophesised _and ripped the plastic. She was about to unfold it and clean her school uniform, but stopped. The facial tissue was covered in red paint or ink._ The other side is overcrowded. The dead will have nowhere to go.

That's when everything went wrong.

"The dataflow is recursing!" Maya yelled.

While an accurate description of the events, Ritsuko realized that it was not an _apt_ description; Zero-Zero was trashing spasmodically and pullet at its restraints. Heavy, slow movements in the water, but filled with momentum and force. The shoulder-bridge was crumpled like a thin sheet of aluminium foil. Underwater microphones screamed for a second, like a submarine being crushed by water pressure, until they were cut off by a technician.

The restraints held.

The armature they'd been welded to did not.

Unit-00's white arm tore hundreds of ceramic plates from the wall as it reached towards the observation module mounted to the wall. The black steel, bent out of shape by the force of the Eva, trailed behind like the strings of a puppet. Concrete dust fell by the kilos into the blue water, colouring it a dull grey.

_It was just a bad joke, I must have been. In traditional Japanese fashion, she discarded the (untraditionally unused) facial tissue onto the street. She really had to get to school now. She was about to begin walking, but stopped. She could see herself standing in the middle of the road-crossing perpendicular to the one she had just crossed. Rei was crossing, or rather, not-crossing, on a red light. Cars ran past her, neither party acknowledging the other. What was she doing here? Rei spoke to nobody in particular, staring down at her feet, reciting without pause._

_Weird._

"We can't abort the half-dive?" Ritsuko asked Aoba, herself digging through the explosion of data that emanated from the MAGI, concerning Unit-01.

"The Synchronization Control Software has locked up!" he responded, trying to manually force a shutdown.

A task made a lot more ardours by the process manager locking up the moment he selected any of the processes tied to Unit-00. His screen exploded with error messages, as did every other screen. The local MAGI terminal's memory stacks overflowed with recursive functions trying to model the complex (in both the common and mathematical meanings of the word) interactions of two noetic fields in the 3+ dimensions of our universe, currently limited to a simplified model of Euclidian-derived Minkowski space, trapped in a self-augmenting feedback loop.

It would be really bad for pretty much everyone if negative numbers were fed into the Feynman diagrams.

Or, more correctly and even more terrifying, derived from the rational solutions.

Unit-00 punched the giant, meter-thick armoured glass of the command module. Giant cracks manifested all over the many glass plates, saved from shattering inwards only by the outer (that is to say, _inner_ room-wise, but on either side of the glass, so _outer_) layer of flexible, transparent plastic. The giant hybot's arms had not been designed to punch with, and only been fitted with thin armour plates that would soon break; the stress from the gigantic punches the Eva delivered too much. Unfortunately, the plastic would break first, being a lot weaker than steel.

Dr Akagi shattered a safety-glass case surrounding a large red button. It was big and it was obvious. It was the sort of button that begged through its very existence to be pushed hard without concern for what it really did. It was lined with a yellow-and-black diagonal pattern that screamed out to every enemy agent, bumbling fool and curious child that it should be pushed for no other reason that that it merely was there.

That was the point, after all. An ECCO technician missing half his brain and most of his limbs should still be able to push the button that cut power from the Eva. Preferably, even while blinded and on drugs. It was better to be safe than to never have the chance to be sorry.

Ritsuko pushed the button, as it begged her to, though she had never listened, and there was a quiet roar; four explosive lock bolts had detonated underwater, to push the Umbilical Cord away from the otherwise powerless Evangelion.

"Why hasn't it shut down?" Gendo Ikari demanded to know, when the Eva failed to power down. Even with the actual supply of power physically cut, the charge that remained in the Umbilical cord could keep Unit-00 powered for minutes.

Several minutes more than the armoured window and Ayanami's brain could hold; the few seconds of the Eva's internal capacitors were much gentler on both pilot and staff.

Rei, for once, screamed. She flailed and spasmed in her seat, bouncing off and drifting slowly until the nearly random direction of gravity within an equally spastic giant mecha pulled her back against the walls of the Entry Plug. She felt as if her head was about to rupture out from behind her right eyeball, bringing with it tortured grey matter. Her vision was clouded in red and black and she swallowed further screams when her left eyeball saw the explosion of blood from the right one.

On order from the Commander, who was already running down the stairs at a rate usually reserved for hyperactive children, the second set of explosive lock-bolts were detonated, and the Entry Plug ejected with solid-state rockets to force a shutdown. Rei felt the cyberlink-cables tear at her neural interface as she was thrown against the rapidly approaching Entry Plug wall, by her own inertia. There was a cracking sound.

It was followed by several more.

Gendo Ikari, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically pulling the 'open' switch of the door to the SynchTest chamber frantically while the light was still red. He would fire the idiot who hadn't made the drainage valves bigger, he would personally kick them out of whatever subsidiary they belong to, he would... _No._ He was angry, and afraid. He was overreacting. He was, however, going to dock their pay; they were _emergency_ drainage valves, after all.

_Finally_ the door swung open after one-too-many annoying beeps. He ran across the still-wet floor, not really caring whether he would slip or not. His walking became heavier as he approached the plug, and ejected LCL mixed with the water. The Entry Plug had been sucked away by the draining vortex, held against the grid that served as a filter, on the far end of the room. There were reddish clouds in the water, clearly blood pouring out. Lots of it. _Please, Rei, no..._

He burned his hands on the Entry Plug door's opening levers. Reflexively, he withdrew his hands only to try again, ignoring the burning feeling, sound and smell. As he recoiled his glasses fell from his face. Dr Akagi could go fuck herself for placing the solid-state rockets pointing _towards the door_. He did not have the patience or mood to care for her ego today.

At last, the Entry Plug hatch swung open, revealing Rei cradled face-down in a reddish-pink pool of LCL and blood.

"Rei!" Gendo yelled as he moved over to pull her head out "Rei!"

* * *

**ESAGILA ACADEMY FOR YOUNG STUDENTS - Wednesday August 28th, 2030**  
It was oddly relieving to be back in school, Shinji Ikari thought. After '_Operation Tsubasa_,' (a name that was mentally less evocative of the actual events than '_the second time this month I almost got killed by rampaging alien invaders_') he had been subjected to a battery of cognitive tests, involving everything from his hand-eye coordination, pupil dilation, speech, skill in mathematics (there had been some worry until they checked his report-card and found that, yes, he was just poor at math) facial recognition, whatever they did through his neural interface and probably a lot of other tests he couldn't even remember. If he was pulled out of his comfortable bed, in the early hours of morning, even again, to answer grade-school questions concerning saccharine-cute anthropomorphized animals, he would end his life right there and then with the pen they'd given him, to escape the torturous pain and embarrassment. In the end, he'd practically begged Misato to put him back into school. It was that, or the nearest tall window.

_Hah! I'm being rather suicidal today. Maybe they should have checked for depression, rather than 'psychic backlash,' and PTSD while they were at it…_ he thought sarcastically.

There were also the nightmares he'd had the first few days while still in pain, but he'd rather not think about them. According to the medical staff, stuff like that was pretty normal, and nothing to worry about.

But he was back in school, surprisingly undisturbed by his classmates. Rather than trying to crush him to death by grinding their bodies against him, or annoyingly ask him "Are you OK?" _ad nauseam_ they had simply left him in peace to drown out the world around him with the music of relatively obscure composers and artist who'd had their fifteen minutes of fame (or were still bitterly awaiting it) in the shallow waters of the 'net. That is, he _was_, until Horaki and Temarei walked over to his desk; he had earlier tried to ignore the Class Rep _once_, much to the displeasure of his ears when she had yanked the earplugs out. In all fairness, he had deliberately ignored her, but she could at least have gotten his full attention less painfully.

"On behalf of the class," Horaki started "I'd like to thank you for saving us from the alien,"

"And on behalf of the rest of the school, I'd like to thank you too," Temarei continued.

_That's not right…_ "Uh, if I hadn't almost landed on you," Shinji said "…I wouldn't have almost gotten you killed twice in the first place, so I really don't…"

"Hey, New Guy!" a loud voice interrupted him, or perhaps, interrupted Horaki's interruption. At least, she shot the interrupting party; Suzahara with Aide in tow, an indignant stare.

"I'm sorry," Shinji said back, not drawing quite as much ire from Horaki, despite the continued cycle of interruption "I'm really sorry! I didn't mean to get any of you caught up in the battle, I just…"

"Hey, don't apologize!" Toji interrupted once more (would it ever end?) "_I'm_ the one who should apologize, for punching you – " Shinji didn't quite hear the next part, which was drowned out by Horaki's "You did _what!?_" but nonetheless " – uo for saving me and Kensuke!"

"Yeah, the JSDA held this mandatory seminar a few days ago that explained everything…" Kensuke began, stopping Shinji from making any further apologies "…well, everything they're willing to tell us civilians anyway, about your special situation,"

"You idiot!" Toji groaned to Kensuke "Now he's going to think I'm only apologizing because of that stupid seminar!"

"As opposed to; because your sister, a second-grader, verbally harassed you?" Kensuke retorted. Toji angrily groaned once more and then walked over to his desk as the teacher walked in. Immediately the lights were subdued and the whiteboard lit up, painted with the login screen of the school's network, courtesy of an overhead projector linked by WLAN to their teacher's cyberbrain. "Man, that one woman holding the seminar was _hot!_" Kensuke mumbled as he opened the lid of his laptop.

"Rise, bow!"

* * *

Some people might think that with the advent of cyberization and the consequential radical changes to all forms of body image, that society had changed; with a perfectly sculpted physique free of the genetically predispositioned failings of the biological bodies, bereft of the quirks of evolutionary biology (or if one were so inclined, the divine quirks of one's deity of choice) and the very real prospect of having a body designed to fit one's own self-image, that people in general and teenagers in particular, cared less for the exact development and contours of their (or perhaps, _others'_) teenage bodies.

Those people were wrong. Evolutionary biology still cared. Its voice could not be silenced.

It could be told to look the other way though, such as by splitting the genders whenever any one of them would be wearing tight clothing that left a lot of skin exposed. Especially when that skin would also be wet, and glistening in the sun.

Or perhaps that was a Sisyphus-task, as evident by the all male students currently having a break from the basketball game staring in at the girls in swimming hall; placing the sports-fields next to the swimming hall, and then designing the latter out of large, clear panes of glass was somewhat counterproductive. The boys didn't particularly mind though. In fact, they quite enjoyed the opportunity.

"Man, all the girls have such great breasts," Toji noted in an exposed-skin-induced daze, heightened by the soft blue fabric that faintly accentuated the developing breasts. Shinji's gaze was somewhat less general.

Ayanami climbed out of the pool and into view. She loosened a white-and-blue floatation device from her right arm, a buoyant sleeve to compensate for the increase in weight from prosthetics. She looked so sad, where she stood alone, with nobody cheering at her when she swam, or any friends to talk to; all she did was to sit down alone on a bench with a towel.

"Hey, Shinji!" Toji yelled, having caught his indecent staring, through really there was nothing indecent about it since it was out of concern rather than lecherous lusts, Shinji told himself. Despite the fact that she was very pretty. "What are you staring so intently at?"

"No-no-nothing!" he objected.

"He's staring at Ayanami!" Kensuke joined in, "...and her silky thighs,"

"...or maybe Nakashima's giant tits, or Temarei's creamy legs?" Toji continued, the pair of minds as one. Shinji took advantage of the slip-up:

"What? Temarei's over there, playing baseball in the field. I can't have stared at her!" he said and pointed at the medium-to-heavily cyberized girls in their class, who, because they _sank_, did not participate in the swimming. They could perhaps have used larger versions of the floatation devices girls like Ayanami used, but that was seen as degrading and embarrassing. "...you're the one who has been looking in that direction, not me," he continued, motioning towards Kensuke.

"Oh," Toji began with a mischievous smile "...it's not the Student Council Rep he's been ogling..." to which Kensuke responded by turning a very deep shade of pink. "See that girl with the reddish-brown hair next in line to bat?" Toji said to Shinji and pointed at a girl standing in the batter's box. "Kensuke has a crush on her –" Kensuke protested "–just because she's named after an aircraft carrier,"

"_Kongo_-class battlecruiser," the boy with glasses corrected while pushing them back onto his nose "...and lots of girls in the school have the names of warships, not just Mana,"

"On a first-name basis already?" Shinji offered as his entry into the "make fun of Kensuke" communal activity "...you seem to know her _really well_," he said with a smirk. Kensuke just folded his arms and lifted his nose in the air with self-righteous indignation and a 'hmpf!'

Then everything was forgotten and forgiven as a girl with a full-conversion shell and a lack of full control batted a foul ball hard into Toji's chest. The baseball then bounced off the muscular boy and into Shinji's face, much to Kensuke's amusement. They all laughed.

Well, they all laughed once Toji was able to breathe again, and Shinji's world had stopped spinning.

* * *

A suspicious food-like odour hit Shinji with force as he opened the door to Misato's (_and mine_, he reminded himself) apartment. It was not particularly atrocious, (_yet_ Shinji thought) although Misato had used too much onion again. Shinji merely opened the door to the balcony, letting the hot air rush out. It actually smelled good, in its own way. _That won't last though…_ Shinji thought as he caught a small pile of brown packets of cyborg food-supplements in the corner of his eye.

"What's the occasion?" he asked; he was supposed to cook today, this was better food than Misato usually bought, and there was too much of it, even for two humans and an uplifted penguin. _…is that more beer? The fridge is still half-full from her latest alcohol-raid!_

"I've invited Ritsuko and Major Kusanagi over so we can get to know each other better, so I'm making something special," Misato explained. _Special? It's_ unique! _Your food's sheer lack of quality is unparalleled! It is also _instant_!_ "Besides, you cook all the time Shinji; I feel like a poor housemate, so I decided to make up for it."

_I cook all the time on purpose. Making you feel bad enough about it to you do the laundry was just an added bene… I shouldn't think like that._

"Thank you," Shinji eventually said.

Much to his displeasure, Misato dropped the cyborg food packets right into the curry. A sickeningly sweet smell diffused throughout the room, a harbinger of unspeakable, incomprehensible tastes to come. He should probably do his homework on the balcony, even if it was rather cold outside. Penpen would undoubtedly join him, although being an uplifted penguin, he'd probably handle the cold better than Shinji.

* * *

**[Shinji has mail]**  
READ

from: ..de  
to: ..jp  
subject: I'm Impressed!  
Hello again, Third Child

I'm almost annoyed with you now. Both of the stupid Rakbu have attacked the facilities in Japan, with not a single one attacking Germany. That's not fair! Can't they understand that Germany is an important target too, since we developed the latest _Evangelion_ unit? Maybe I should ask to be transferred to Japan.

Best regards,  
Asuka Langley Soryu, Second Child and Pilot of Unit-02

Well, it certainly wouldn't bother Shinji to have someone a little more enthusiastic fight the Rakbu rather than him. Perhaps he should also reply to this one, rather than promising himself that he would some eventual tomorrow...

* * *

Shinji poured the thick sludge from its pot, onto Dr Akagi's plate of rice. Curry should probably not be that thick. In fact, until he had met Misato, Shinji did not think it possible to_make_ curry that thick, but now he had evidence to the contrary, which he hoped he could just forget about, gastronomic-scientific integrity be damned.

"Is this instant?" Dr Akagi asked. _Ms_ Akagi, Shinji recalled that she insisted, since she wasn't working. Imagining that Dr/Ms Akagi had a life outside that of being a doctor of metacryptology, and that she could actually _not_ wear a labcoat was something Shinji still had problems comprehending. "You still eat this junk? You have a salary now, you know!" the off-hours doctor complained.

"Hey, you're the guest; you have no right to complain!" Misato retorted equally impolite.

Ritsuko formed a ball of rice with her spoon and lifted it up through the curry, soaking it in the sauce, though, as Shinji, Ritsuko and Maj. Kusanagi noted, it was less soaking and more like lifting tasty lard that itself tried to eat and dissolve the rice.

'_Tasty_ lard' was a presumptuous claim, to say the least.

"Misato cooked, didn't she? I can tell by the fact that we appear to have found a cheaper way to mass-produce combat-suitable non-Newtonian fluids," Ritsuko stated. Her spoon suddenly lay neatly on her plate, as if denying that she had eaten could somehow wash away the saccharine, oil-like taste. "…hasn't she heard about emulsifiers?" she mumbled under her breath.

"You can tell?" Misato asked while gobbling down her curry-beer-noodles. _Has she not realized that the beer is the only reason she herself can eat that stuff?_ thought Shinji. "Well, dig in guys!" Misato said.  
_Yes, we should dig it down in the back yard…_ was the instant mental retort of three of the four people at the table.

"Ms Akagi, Maj. Kusanagi" Shinji leant over and whispered "Find some excuse to meet me in the kitchen; I have some day-old yakitori and frozen ostrich-gyudon that might interest you"

"I really can't taste what so bad about this," Maj. Kusanagi said as she shovelled rice and curry down with her chopsticks. She, like Misato and Ms Akagi, wore non-work clothes; a light blue loose-fitting t-shirt and dark blue baggy pants. Shinji supposed he shouldn't be surprised to see her like that, since he'd seen the same shell in anything from parkas to almost nothing, but all full-conversion cyborgs, even those with mass-production faces, always ended up with a sort of inseparable individuality tied to their ghost _and_ shell. It was only natural to find it odd to not see her in the olive-green JSDA uniform.

All illusions of normality were interrupted by the horrified wail of a man-penguin decrying Misato's cooking. _Sorry, Penpen_. Misato insisted. _I'll sneak you some tempura later…_

"You know Shinji, you really ought to consider moving out," Ms Akagi broke the silence "You shouldn't let one bad roommate ruin your entire life."

Shinji looked away from the foaming aquatic avian: "It doesn't matter; I've grown used to it," Granted, 'used to it' in this case meant having his head filled with comments that measured red on the universal indicator, and a constant desire for Misato to _grow up!_ but it was becoming second nature to him.

"He's right Ritsuko," the now-drunken Misato joined in "Never underestimate the natural ability of the human animal to adapt to its environment,"

"Humans have a greater tendency to alter their environments to suit themselves" Maj. Kusanagi noted with crossed arms, uncrossing them to take the occasional sip of canned beer "…and in the last forty years, themselves on a radical level"

"That's not an attribute exclusive to humans," Ms Akagi said while eating a ball of rice that hadn't been touched by the curry "many animals, best exemplified by the dam-building beaver, instinctively alter their environment to suit themselves"

"I remember reading an article about bobaddah bobaddah, yadga blah yadda yadda Dr Norden fuzjaimy boppobop fzink oh yeah ," Ms Akagi and Maj. Kusanagi said, or words to that effect, only to be broken off by Misato:

"…well, if Shinji tried to move, or build a beaver-dam in downtown Yugawara, for that matter –" Misato shook her beer can and disappointingly found it empty "Shinji, can I please have another one? Thank you!" she continued: "–he'd have to go through a mountain of red tape and angry desk-jockeys; he only just got his permanent security card, you know."

"Oh!" Dr Akagi exclaimed "I almost forgot again," she dug through her purse and withdrew a small plastic card "Shinji, I need a favour,"

"What is it?" he asked.

"This is Rei's new security card. I keep forgetting to give it to her, and her old one will be locked out tomorrow. Could you give it to her after school tomorrow?" Dr Akagi explained and passed him the card without waiting for a reply. Shinji was about to object, but then again he didn't really have anything against having an excuse to talk to her, did he? Shinji looked at the picture of Ayanami; there was no doubt it could only be her; she looked so sad, or rather, she looked so indifferent and in lack of happiness in a way that was saddening. She didn't really have any friends either, despite being quite pretty and smart, going by how accurately she answered questions their teachers posed, when and only when prompted.

Very pretty, in fact.

"What's the matter?" Misato said with a tone of voice that divided double-entendres by two and a look that turned suggestive comments into proclamations. Ritsuko looked at Shinji with a slightly raised eyebrow and a corner of her mouth raised in an amused smile. Maj. Kusanagi, well... She was a lot like Rei and if she had even stared at him, it had been momentary so that she could get back to drinking and eating. "You're staring at Rei's picture aren't you?" Misato continued.

"Wha-" Shinji exclaimed "I'm not!"

"Oh yes, you were, Shinji!" she teased.

"Was not," he objected, although the luminescent blush of his cheeks helped little. At least Ritsuko had derived all fun from the joke and returned to salvaging scraps of food from the assimilating curry, and Maj. Kusanagi was looking at Misato, not him, with an eyebrow raised as if asking 'are you for real?'

Misato laughed. "I think I embarrassed him," She laughed more behind her hand, the other occupied by her umpteenth can of beer that evening. _I'm right here, damn it!_ Shinji thought _It's not an witty aside when I can hear it! Also, it's not witty!_

"Well, now you've got an excuse to go over to Rei's place," the teasing slob said with a smile "...don't you?" _Why me?_ he asked himself. _I already get this kind of crap from Toji and Kensuke concerning _you_ daily. Next thing I know Ayanami will ask very overtly whether I have a crush on the Student Council Rep!_ he said, picking someone at random. That bore reiteration; random. Honestly.

Shinji resolutely sat down and whined angrily "Stop teasing me!" he said and glared at her. Misato just laughed.

"But I love teasing you," she said with a grin and the smell of alcohol on her breath, not that she didn't tease Shinji while sober. "...you go so ballistic!"

"...you certainly are a tease, aren't you?" Maj. Kusanagi offered, her tone as flat as a plane.

Now there were two blushing individuals in the room; luckily alcohol mends many faults.

"Apparently Misato isn't the only one to go ballistic..." Ms Akagi commented, to level the amount of embarrassment between her old room-mate and the Third Child, which until that point had been unfairly biased towards the younger of the two. That neither she herself, nor by consequence of being present, Maj. Kusanagi, had been embarrassed _at all_during the evening, was irrelevant.

* * *

Maj. Kusanagi stared out through the window of Rei Ayanami's apartment. Beyond the windowsill, there were dozens of apartment buildings just like the one the blue-haired girl lived in, each an anonymous grey monolith of prosaic proportions, with a uniform pattern of dull windows in a gird strew across the façades. Smog from nearby industry and the thick lines of jammed cars along the high-way bridges drifted in through the narrow streets, like a poisonous flood. The purple-haired woman could hardly believe they let one of their pilots live in a dump like this.

That wasn't the real problem though. The real problem was that there were unhealthily many ways to kill Unit-00's only pilot while she was at home. Unhealthy for the pilot, that is; the only window to her tiny apartment opened directly into the main room and corridor, leaving a line-of-fire to the door and only escape route. The windowless bathroom could only be accessed by running through the aforementioned corridor. _Which idiot thought this was a safe place? It didn't even have guards before the JSDA arrived. Anyone could have walked up and just _shot_ her, because her __door is broken!_

With her nose almost against the glass of the window, Maj. Kusanagi could hear the reverberant hum of the Tachikoma on the other side, hanging from the smoggy grey façade and using its thorax and pod as an inhuman _Tachikomatic, perhaps..._ shield against sniper fire and/or grenades. The optical cloak was active, re-rendering the depressing picture of undying grey buildings on a convex, radar-stealthed canvas with a brain of its own.

"You really live here?" she asked the teenage girl rhetorically.

"It is adequate," the girl answered and looked away from her screen.

"Then you won't mind that the JSDA are arranging for your transfer to somewhere more secure," she said to the indifferent girl.

"I don't mind," was the response, her red eyes reflecting the luminescent glow of the laptop screen. Her fingers moved awkwardly across the keyboard, unsynchronized with one hand rapid and inhumanly precise and the other jaggedly mechanical. Maj. Kusanagi leant in to look at Ayanami's work. The girl ceased typing and stared at her with open eyes. It was almost unnerving.

Maj. Kusanagi turned to leave. There were no hidden microphone or explosives, no breaches of security, and the target was not engaged in suicidally stupid activities like downloading uncensored infowarfare files.

"Miss Ayanami," she said as she reached for the door-handle "use static_castdouble(n) rather than (double) n. 'double' in parenthesis is just a holdover to ensure backwards compatibility. You shouldn't use it."

There were sounds of a chair being shuffled.

"..."

"Thank you,"

* * *

Shinji looked at Ayanami's security card as he let his PDA guide him to her apartment. It had taken some time to find out where she lived—her address had been impossible to get off the 'net. He'd found references to _one_ 'Ayanami Rei' on the first search, but since she lived eight hours by shinkasen express train away in Kyosho, it couldn't be the 'First Child' as Dr Akagi occasionally called her. _First, Second, Third... Is there a fourth? I'll ask Misato,_ he thought. There had been several more failed attempts at finding 'Ayanami Rei, Ashigarashimo' in public registers. He'd found nothing more than verification of her existence proving that she was not merely an elaborate joke set up by his father to torment him with a hunt for the metaphorical left-handed catcher's mitt _I'm hanging out way to much with Kensuke..._

Eventually he'd given up and asked the Class Rep, who thankfully didn't give him a hard time about why he wanted to know where she lived. The other half of the undividable pair, the Student Council Rep had been downright encouraging, smiling at him and telling him that Ayanami needed more friends.

Did she really live here?

His line of thought was broken when he passed Maj. Kusanagi at the entrance to Ayanami's apartment complex. _...couldn't she have delivered it?_ Then again, he now had an excuse to visit the apartment of a cute girl and even talk to her _...so never look a gift horse in the mouth, but beware of Greeks bearing gifts, yet if you do not enter the tigers cave, you will not catch its cub... argh! Proverbs are no help!_

Apartment 402. The alarm bell didn't work. He tried it twice to verify. To his surprise, the door was not locked. As he swung the door open, a thick wad of dead-tree letters joined a heap of mail on the floor, falling from the mail slot. He called her name. No answer. He called again, slightly louder.

"I'm sorry to disturb. It's Shinji Ikari. I'm here to deliver your new security card. I'm coming in, OK?"

Still no response; she was probably not home. _Then why is the door open? Odd_ He slipped out of his shoes and entered the corridor. He stared into the main living room. He'd never seen anything that lifeless—it was so empty even the cramped Japanese living standard seemed enormous; the walls were bare and grey, almost the same colour as the whitish floor. There was a letterbox window, halfway hidden behind blue curtains, letting light seep through to bleach the already colourless room.

If he had been presented with the room with no foreknowledge, he'd almost have guessed it was abandoned; it was almost devoid of personal belongings; no posters of famous idol singers, boybands or celebrities; there was a bookshelf though, filled with thick books that bore dry titles—none he recognized, at least, except for the schoolbooks. Her desk only held school stationary and an active laptop.

The room was as empty as Ayanami's circle of friends, to make a comparison, and about as telling as Ayanami herself. _Well, she likes reading,_ he thought and looked at the piles of books scattered around, with small paper slips stuck between pages _...but I knew that already_, as he'd occasionally seen her sitting on a bench during lunch breaks enveloped in a book.

_So she's a girl, she doesn't talk much, and she likes books. I _really_ don't know much about her, do I? What did I expect to find in her apartment? Proof to the contrary? Stupid._

_Where should I leave this card so she can find it?_ Shinji asked himself. There was a change of clothes, Ayanami's school uniform, laid out neatly on her bed, next to the blood-soaked pillow. _Ugh..._ There was an entire cardboard box of blood-soaked bandages, and the top of her refrigerator was littered with medication of some sort, including a popular brand of painkiller. He felt a tinge of guilt.

_But what are the glasses doing here? Ayanami doesn't wear glasses, does she?_ He looked at them; large, almost rectangular halfrims, not quite browlines, but that was the limit of his glasses-vocabulary. He placed them in from of his eyes and looked through the cracked lenses; myopic. He tried to imagine her wearing them. He didn't know... 'cute' perhaps? Her eyes hidden behind the lenses—she'd look even colder...

Then he heard the sound of a door being closed. He smiled; if she had returned he could just hand the card to her and...

She was stark naked.

He was standing in Rei Ayanami's apartment, and she was naked.

He was also wearing her glasses, but that was a lesser worry.

"Ayanami, I..." he stammered "I...

She walked resolutely towards him and stretched out an arm—he anticipated a sharp pain in his face.

"I didn't mean..." he tried to apologize.

With one arm, she grabbed his shoulder hard. With the other, she took the glasses. _Oh, so it's just the glass-_

Then he slipped in something that made a cracking sound, like stepping on eggshells. They fell, awkwardly. His school bag snagged something, and he was thrown further off balance. There _was_ a sharp pain to his face when his head struck her bare, wet skin on the way down. He wasn't really sure what was going on. Then they both hit the ground and lay slumped there. He looked right into her face.

She was beautiful.

Her red eyes were stunning, looking right back into his.

She cleared her throat.

"Are you going to mo-"

Then, the situation exploded. The sound of crashing glass filled his ear, and he could hear the thousand shards scatter down on Ayanami's desk.

"**Stop right there, evil pervert!**" a child's voice shouted. Shinji rolled off Ayanami _Oh, god. I was holding her breast, wasn't I_ he was sure was going to be his last conscious thought. He stared right down the barrel of an urban-grey spider tank. It stood halfway through the broken window and fixed two of its three eyeballs on him. _No, please..._ this was just embarrassing. "Don't move. I've got you right where I want you!" it continued.

Rei Ayanami got onto her feet and stared at the grey, cybernetic arachnid. Her eyebrows were lowered, a little. Still naked and wet, she walked over to her desk and lifted the dark blue curtains. With a decisive movement, she drew the curtains over the spider-tank, covering it. Then, and he could not believe this, she _pushed_ at it, and it _withdrew_.

Its silhouette was still visible against the curtains. Shinji was fairly certain it still aimed at his head.

"What?" Ayanami asked him, breaking the new, painful silence.

"I... uh..." he stuttered, trying not to look as she got dressed. "I was asked to... Card. You card. I..."

Tried not to look. She was tying up a single bundle of long hair with a black hair band now. He looked away again, as she pulled the skirt of her school uniform on.

"...Dr Akagi asked me to, uh... I didn't mean to..."

The door slammed. She'd left.

* * *

Shinji Ikari walked at a steady pace a fixed distance from Rei Ayanami. He really didn't know how to apologize to her. _'I'm sorry I walked into your house, caught you naked, fell on you and then groped you. It wasn't my fault!' doesn't sound sincere enough. 'I'm really sorry. At least I didn't break your window.' beat *laugh* wouldn't even work on _other_people! What to say, what to say?_

And then there was the Tachikoma, **protector of Miss Ayanami's dignity!**, the giant urban-camouflaged spider-tank that followed him uncomfortably close. It _scowled_ at him. It had no eyebrows, yet it _scowled_ at him. It rolled on its tiny wheels, furtively sliding back and forth around him, as if he would suddenly veer off if it didn't keep both sides well guarded. He sighed.

_Only five minutes to the metro. It'll only follow me for another five minutes. It can't fit through the train doors._

_...though I know it will try._

He let out another sigh.

* * *

There was a regular staccato beat as the metro train-wagon's wheels hit the junctures between two rails at regular intervals. It was accompanied by the electric humming of the electric cables that ran alongside the railway in a chaotic and unpredictable pattern, yet at the same time constant and harmonic, like ambience. Rei flipped a page in her book_more correctly, belonging to the School Library and borrowed_, and let her eyes pan over the katanka.

_But the Wizard was undoubtedly a machine. She had not yet had the opportunity to study it in detail, but after her experiences in all of King Coyote's other castles, she suspected that it, too, was just another Turing machine. Her study of the Cipherers' Market, and particularly of the rulebooks used by the cipherers to respond to messages, had taught her that for all its complexity, it too was nothing more than another Turing machine._

This was very interesting. She could, if she wanted, talk about this to the Literary Club, the next time there was a meeting; she could compare and contrast the author's views on the same subject matter over a three-year time period in two different works of literature. _It is too dry and technical,_ she thought _but that is not the object of the exercise._ She would need to think about this.

She tried to read on, but the electric humming was becoming annoying. It was like small voices, constantly filling her head; broken fragments of conversation that was _not being spoken_ Rei felt sweat form under her hair—she tried to concentrate on her book.

_"Very funny," he said. "You snuck a zero divide past all of my defences."_

The noise grew louder, like the rasping of silk paper. Electrified voices that reminded her of the noise in the Entry Plug.

She wished it would be quiet.

* * *

Rei swiped her security card through the card-reader at the entrance to the ECCO GeoFront. There was a buzz, a red light, and the door did not open. She swiped the card again, making sure that the magnetic line was on the right side against the card-reader. The door did still not open. She tried again. _Dust on the reader?_ She swiped again. It still did not work. _Puzzling._

"Here, try this," she heard the voice of Shinji Ikari say. He held out a security card bearing her name and image. She snatched it from his hand and swiped it. It worked.

She headed towards the long escalators that would bring her down to the Evangelion pens in Central Dogma. She could hear footsteps following her, probably belonging to Shinji Ikari, who would have passed the Security checkpoint moments after her. The footsteps ceased as he boarded the escalator she'd picked.

The escalator was long. She wished she hadn't deposited her book topside. Next time she would bring it; she'd seen the inside of the GeoFront more time than she could count, though she had a fairly good estimate of how many times it must have been, since she was 16 years old and couldn't remember it not being present as a daily occurrence. _Of course, memory is imperfect._

"I'm sorry," she heard Shinji Ikari's voice say. _What is he sorry about? Wearing the glasses? Unlikely._

"About what?" she asked flatly.

"I... uh..." he began. "...aren't you going to have a re-activation test today?" he finally asked. _Why is he sorr—he changed subject,_ she realized.

"Yes," she answered.

"Aren't you scared, Ayanami?" he asked "Aren't you afraid of piloting Unit-Zero?"

"Why?" she asked. She could think of no reason she should be scared.

"Well, Misato told me you were hurt in an earlier test, so..." he said.

"Aren't you Commander Ikari's son?" she asked. _Dr Akagi implies it, but the Commander has never referred to him as such,_ she remembered. _Strange._

"Uh-huh," he replied

"Don't you trust your father's work?" she asked, keeping her tone quiet and neutral.

"No!" he shouted at her "Of course not! How can I ever trust him again?"

She turned around and faced him, entirely possible on an escalator. _How can he not trust in his father? The Commander does many great things,_ she thought. It was an annoyingly selfish way of thinking, she realized, to judge people by single incidents in the past. It was...

_Agitating._

She struck him across the face with her hand, with an audible 'slap'. Artificial pain ran up her arm as the fiber-optic skin was pressed against his face. She turned around and formed her hand to a fist around the pain. _That was wrong,_ she thought. _I overreacted. I will not let it happen again._

_And my judgement may be clouded too,_ she said and clutched the broken glasses in the pocket of her school uniform.

* * *

Shinji sat in Unit-01, at a perpendicular angle to Unit-00, and half-slept through a battery of neural- and synchronization- tests. On order from Misato, he was trying to familiarize himself with the cluttered user-interface he was supposed to use, distributed between a tactile one and the one stuck inside his head. He still awoke in the middle of night scratching it to rash, trying to regain the sense of touch, or even pain in his neck.

_Did you know,_ he said to an imaginary persona _...that the Eva has a sonar that activates when the head is submerged in water?_ That was a feature, according to Dr Akagi. _Without__pilot input? I've been killed twice in VR simulations because it gives my location away. Dr Akagi promises she's been working on a not!bug-fix, but honestly I think she'd been putting it off._

He keyed a radial menu that was faintly superimposed over his left field of view. Points of blue and red light danced around in his head as he rotated between the different options. Some of them made little sense. '**[WEAPONS CONTROL]**' _doesn't make any sense, because Unit-01 doesn't _have_ any weapons_ It could carry and use a giant rifle and a knife, but they were covered in another menu under '**[MODULAR WEAPONS SYSTEM]**' and '**[EMERGENCY KNIFE]** respectively, _so why is there another menu for weapons the does nothing?_

_And what does '_**[GRUND-RAUM WAFFENSTEURSYSTEME]**_' mean? That's not Japanese. It's not even English!_

'**[ZOOM]**' was rather easy to figure out though. He played around with the digital zoom, enlarging different parts of his view while he waited for Dr Akagi and Lt. Ibuki to finish toying around inside his head.

He could, for example, get a close-up of his father talking to Rei Ayanami, if he wanted. _...is Ayanami _smiling_?_ She was smiling with her entire face, eyebrows lifted high, and talking entire sentences, and his father was _smiling back_, and talking to her. _...can I get sound on this thing to? I think I saw an option for—what am I thinking? I'm not that desperate! Besides, it would be impolite to eavesdrop. That's an as good reason as any. Right._

Rei climbed into the Entry Plug of Unit-00 and connected the cyberlinks to her own neck. As she swallowed the LCL and let it pour into her lungs, he heard Dr Akagi order to connection of the Outer Receptors of the KIDs system. She felt a small tinge in her neck as her senses spread out like a vapour and inhabited the Evangelion.

_She was sitting in the middle of a busy city intersection. She stared wide-eyed at the red 'Don't Walk' lights as cars passed her. She could feel her own heartbeat in her throat. She had nowhere to go in the thick stream of cars—none of them acknowledged her, almost hitting her as they passed. Nobody acknowledged her sitting there in her old school uniform. People, waiting for the green lights. So many people. Their colours washed out and they blended into each other, to faceless, anonymous shapes clad in—_no_ ...made form black and smokey grey. She felt afraid, gasping at the total wrongness. She looked skywards and found herself trapped in the shadow of something terrible._

"Initiating Second Layer" 2nd Lt. Ibuki said.

_She sat in a coffee shop and stared down at her shivering hand for ten minutes. Rei couldn't remember how she'd gotten out of the street, between the non-sentient automated cars. She tried to swallow, but her throat was too upset to let her. Her eyes widened and pupils dilated. She turned her head—nothing._

_"Thank you!," someone said. She turned her head to the noise; school girls still in Lower Secondary school discussing boys—"Hey, don't you think he's pretty cute?" She turned her head and looked at the other patrons; people, just normal people, Rei thought. "How did it go with him?" their conversation continued. "Come on, you can tell us!"_

_Rei's thoughts returned to the coffee she'd bought_ I do not usually drink coffee. Then again this is not usual_ she reached her shaking hands towards the lid and tried to struggle it off; they always made the damn plastic—the lip popped off and the cup fell, spilling coffee over her table. She licked her finger to at least get _one_ drop. _I should clean this up, _She tried to gather her thoughts before the coffee poured onto the floor. It was already dripping away, the holes forming shapes and—_these shapes are unnatural_ Rei thought. They looked like... words: _Fulfill the prophecy!

_"W-What prophecy?" she yelled. The coffee-shop was empty. It was not empty the moment before. What was wrong with her?_

"Counting down to Absolute Borderline," Maya reported from her dive station, "Zero-point-nine, zero-point-eight, zero-point-seven..."

Rei remembered, _she was hyperventilating over a sink. She felt like she could throw up._ "zero-point-six"_ she looked at... herself? in the mirror, her pupils like small pinheads and her hair frazzled. "What's going on?" she said to herself._"Zero-point-five"_ "I usually have dinner with mom and dad—"_wait, that thought is wrong?_ "...about now," the lights cut out, and Rei saw her pupils dilate to fill almost the entire iris "Wha—"_ "Zero point four"_ Her eyebrows were quivering in the mirror. She just wanted to go home. She just wanted to go home. "What's happening?"_

_A door squeaked behind her. She swallowed. "I—is there someone there?" she asked with an uneasy voice "Come on, I know you're there!" She walked towards the toilet stall._"Zero-point-three" _She was hyperventilating. She reached out an arm and fumbled towards the toilet stall door in the dark. She couldn't control her breathing anymore. She pushed the door open--_

_and there was no one there. Empty._ "Zero-point-two..."_ The lights returned. Rei relaxed, and she let out a heavy breath. The door to the toilet stall closed and covered her in dark shadows. She jumped, span around, and could feel her heart jump again._ Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! Fulfil the prophecy! _written in red paint all over the toilet stalls door. She screamed,_yet did not. Rei stared into the blue dataspace of the Entry Plug, a snowcrashed fractal pattern of a sea of information. She looked down at the broken pair of glasses. _Why did I bring those?_ she asked herself. _They serve no purpose in the Entry Plug._

"Zero-point one and rising," she heard Maya Ibuki report "Borderline passed; Unit-Zero has been activated!"

"OK, everyone," Dr Ritsuko Akagi said over the intercom "Let's get the rest of this batch of tests done, and we might go home early tonight,"

* * *

Five hundred years ago, a man carried pen to paper and claimed that life was short, brutal and nasty.

To be specific, he claimed that the life of man was _solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short_ which is no less depressing. It might be a slight relief to know that Thomas Hobbes has specifically referred to the 'time of warre' and life without any security, and that 'short, brutal and nasty' was not a cynical commentary on the nature of human life itself, but rather a blanket statement about living in fear being much like being trapped in a war.

There are many words that could be used to describe the life of an ancient god that had spent the last 3 million years of eternity in a sentient embryonic state in an underground sea of information with no tangible or perceptible form.

_Short_ is not one of them.

Nor, parenthetically, is _human_.

The _Lyndon B. Johnson_, a _George Dewey_-class aircraft carrier was en route from Pyongyang, Korea, where it had previously acted as 200,000 tons of deterrence against Chinese communist aggression, together with its sister ship, the _George W. Bush_. In true military style, American Empire Navy High Command had decided that the only suitable response to the failing of one _George Dewey_-class aircraft carrier against the first Rakbu was the deployment of twice as much firepower.

Since the _George Dewey_-class was the epitome of imperialistic gunboat diplomacy; a massive warship whose very continental presence could force smaller nations into surrender, already famous for having shot the second Rakbu out off the air, there might have been something to that strategy.

Sailing without sails after a brief stop in Wakanai, Hokkaido, the _Lyndon B. Johnson_ maintained an airborne wing of helicopters and other recon aircraft. Unlike the other aircraft onboard the warship, these neither bore the insignia of the American Empire Navy, nor the American Empire Marine Corps, but instead of a special organization subordinate to the General of the Air Force only. The Captain of the _Lyndon B. Johnson_, Read Admiral Ornellas, wondered what blind idiot had picked the initialism of the organization, _**D**__efence:__**E**__xtraterrestrial and __**A**__lien __**T**__hreats_, when it so easily turned into an unfortunate abbreviation. Why couldn't they have picked "FORCE: Extraterrestrial and Alien Threats" for a more positive impression, was what she wanted to ask.

Then again, if D.E.A.T. officer Captain Williams was anything to go by, they probably revelled in the raised eyebrows and slight drop of temperature that occurred whenever they presented their top secret, top priority orders with that foreboding header. The slight smirk he had whenever he gave orders, or rather, "advice" as to how to fight the alien invaders, and the way his government prescription shades not _quite_ concealed his military-grade, inhuman optics were the telltale signs of an organization that enjoyed its power a little bit too much. _What is he so smug about? The Anunnaki was defeated by the American _Navy_, not some Air Force subcommittee. Stuck-up landlubber flyboys with their heads in the air, thinking they're the alpha and omega of modern warfare._

And yes, he was insufferably smug when the 'Pattern BLUE'-classed report of alien activity within the _Lyndon B. Johnson_'s operational range arrived.

Post-WWIII Imperial American doctrine and strategy was one of totally overwhelming firepower in the face of the enemy; why risk the lives of good American boys and girls fighting a 'Gentleman's war' on enemy terms, when you had one of the World's largest militaries and could just waltz right in, bomb your enemy back to the stone age are reduce their fighting power to nothing without breaking sweat?

Because of UN regulations, Japanese demands for caution, limited deployment pacts with China and the Russo-American Union, and all those other civilian pacifist regulations that proved Clemenceau wrong, that's why.

The grin on Rear Admiral Ornellas face was therefore wide when Cpt. Williams reported that the Third Rakbu had been detected in International Waters, where most of these regulations did not apply.

The total armament of the _Lyndon B. Johnson_ and the _Zumwalt_-class destroyers that escorted it numbered over one hundred carrier-specialized fighters and bombers, and several dozen other aircraft for refuelling, anti-submarine warfare, recognisance or anti-satellite warfare. In addition to their Close-In-Weapons System, the not-so-innovatively-named_Phalanx II_, the _George Dewey_-class carried enough anti-aircraft missiles, depth charges, cruise missiles, and tactical nuclear weapons alone to make landings under fire in Russian-held 'Vichy' Germany, should the need ever arise again.

On orders from the very sensible, in her opinion, Naval High Command, Rear Admiral Ornellas had deployed two-thirds of her entire air wing against the reflective octahedron. On 'advice' from Cpt. Williams, they were armed with armour-piercing missiles, rather than shrapnel, flechette and napalm, as previously 'suggested'

She'd thrown in a few cruise missiles with tactical nuclear warheads, as a personal gift.

They were opened first.

Cpt. Williams stood in the bridge and watched the first explosion turn the red evening sky turn white. A mushroom-shaped plume smoke and water rose up in an instant. Moments later, it was dispersed and recreated by a second bright flash.

Then there was a third flash.

The retaliatory shot cut the _Lyndon B. Johnson_ in two.

The remaining halves collided as the propellers pushed the stern half against the aft. Steel crumpled under the pressure, bending like modelling clay. Nuclear waste and reactor-grade plutonium leaked out into the sea, boiling the water to steam. Oil leaked out and caught on fire. The aft half capsized, throwing the sailors on deck and some unscrambled A/F51s into the water. There was screaming for help among the men and women. Tiny, compared to the sinking capital ship, they swam frantically towards life-boats deployed by the _Zumwalt_-class destroyers. In their red, blue, yellow, purple, white and brown uniforms, the deck-crew held onto bleeding, howling and/or unconscious brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, kicking hard with their legs to keep their heads out of the water. Cpt. Williams tried to hold onto Ornellas, who had fallen through a window and landed next to him in the water. Her face was lined with cuts from the glass window and she was bleeding from her neural interface. From the way she'd landed it was probable she'd broken her neck. She'd live; she might never walk again. He wasn't a doctor, and passing that judgement now was the least of his priorities.

And in the distance, he could see the white glow of the Rakbu vaporizing the carrier air wing. Long beams of light reached out and vaporized pilots and their aircraft around them.

Their lives were short, brutal and nasty.

_We truly are at war with the Rakbu,_ Cpt. Williams reflected.

* * *

"OK Shinji," Misato called over the cyberlink in Unit-01 "The target is a giant-" the signal cut off for a moment "'octahedron', eh... Do you know what an octahedron looks like?" Shinji nodded. Either because she had a visual feed Shinji didn't know about, or because she didn't particularly care, Misato continued "that's passing over Odawara right now. It'll be in Manazuru in a few moments, and it's headed straight at the GeoFront, so we've deployed you right into the middle of it,"

Shinji felt his stomach turn a little at the reminder of the railgun lift.

"We've got a report via the American Empire embassy that the Rakbu has previously engaged an AE carrier group, so we're co-operating with DEAT to clear out the details on its know capabilities. All we have now is that uses a long-ranged version of the beam the first Rakbu used, so make good use of the cover the fortified buildings provide you with," she continued.

Shinji looked at the projected viewscreen feed of the Entry Plug. He was holding the Eva-rifle to his shoulder and leant a giant white elbow on the roof a 10 storey building, while a taller building hid the rest of the Eva from view; Misato had taught him quite strictly that leaning out from cover was always better than peaking over the top. Had to do with his silhouette, or something.

A UAV-feed followed the sky-blue, almost shining giant Octahedron fly, or perhaps 'drift' or 'hover' were better words, over the cityscape, letting Shinji see the crystalline surface of the Rakbu. Compared to the hideous visage of the first Rakbu, or the disgusting, vermin-like appearance of the second, with its glowing tentacles, it looked almost harmless.

_That's a bad attitude, and you know it, Shinji,_ he said to himself.

"Target should enter visual and firing-range in T minus 20 seconds," an ECCO Operator informed him in its mass-produced voice.

"T minus 15 seco—target has stopped moving," it reported both to the pilot of Unit-01, and to the GeoFront CIC, where its shell was housed. Reflexively, Cpt. Katsuragi turned her head towards it. "Stopped?"

"Correct, Captain Katsuragi. The target has stopped moving," it restated mindlessly.

"...wait," 2nd Lt. Aoba mumbled as he watched the thermal display projected onto his eyes. "There's a massive heat build-up in the target core!" he said as each of the Rakbu's eight triangular planes got a red-orange spot in the centre, where the distance to the core was shortest.

"What!?" Cpt. Katsuragi yelled. "What does that mean?"

Above ground, the Rakbu fired a white beam that ionized a tunnel of air. The beam struck a tall skyscraper in Manazuru. Then the same beam struck the building behind the skyscraper, then the building behind that one again. And a fourth building.

Then it left Manazuru and continued across Yugawara harbour into island above the GeoFront, where it hit another three buildings, leaving gaping holes with slagged edges and seeping liquid metal dripping down to the streets.

Then it left a gaping hole in Unit-01's ventral armour.

Shinji met insurmountable pain and predictably lost. As the LCL around him boiled, he recoiled in pain, reflexively kicking backwards in an unbalanced jump. The 40 metre giant fell backwards through an apartment complex. The 500 tons of Eva crashed into it, crumbling it like a sandcastle. Concrete and armoured steel fell to pieces like a ruptured bag building material. Dust and shrapnel scattered all over the streets.

Unit-01 continued falling backwards, stumbling on Shinji's reflexes and trying to regain its balance. Human balance, unfortunately, is not built to handle weight/height ratios that are off by a factor of 8000. Shinji felt himself roll backwards and land head-first against the bridge that connected the GeoFront island to Yugawara. Then everything went black.

**[EMERGENCY LIFE SUPPORT ACTIVATED]**


	5. Layer 05: COLD Motion without sound

COLD/Motion without sound  
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**Ghost in the Evangelion – Layer 05**  
**A Ghost in the Shell/Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover**

"That's not good..." Misato remarked, frown lines wrinkling her face.

Unit-01's husk lay sprawled on the four-lane bridge that connected the GeoFront island to mainland Yugawara. All signals were dead or irregular, disturbed by the charged particle beam the Rakbu had fired. It had only needed one shot to kill Unit-01. ('Kill' as the concept of a 'vehicle kill' in military jargon, not an indication of the current state of the pilot._Hopefully_). The massive beam of negatively charged particles had vaporized the ventral armour and the fiber-optic skin beneath, and the augmented muscles _beneath that_, leaving only the endoskeletal sternum. The edges of the entry-wound glowed red as they cooled in the morning breeze, sagging inwards.

There was also the problem of bremsstrahlung.

An electron, like all charged particles, releases photons when it accelerates due to interaction with another charged particle. The frequency of the light emitted is directly proportional to the change in velocity of the electron. Since the electron was travelling at a comfortable fraction of the speed of light when it hit Unit-01, and braked to a standstill, the frequency of the emitted photon ranged somewhere in the ionizing radiation range. It was therefore lucky for Shinji Ikari that the resulting photon carried only 20 femtoGreys of radiation, and he wouldn't start dying before he absorbed two or three entire Greys.

There were about 21 orders -of-magnitude-more-than-one electrons aimed at Shinji Ikari.

Radiation shielding doesn't help much when the beta-radiation goes in on one side of the lead plating and shoves gamma-radiation out on the other side right into the Entry Plug.

That was the problem of bremsstrahlung.

The octahedral shape of the Rakbu drifted closer in a manner not quite unlike something completely different from flight. Its massive AT field expanded beyond its body with such strength and size that it scattered and polarized light, letting the primary colours wash over the spherical field of pure thought. It looked like a soap-bubble, if soap-bubbles had such density that they shattered windows simply by touching them, turning every pane of glass it touched into a snow crash of dead television. Buildings disintegrated as they touched its surface, leaving a rhombus shaped hole through Manazuru, preceded by the circular hole of its shot. It could kill an aircraft carrier. It could kill an Eva. It could very possibly kill a god.

This was not a good situation at all.

"Retrieval and medical attention to the pilot takes top priority!" Misato shouted into her mouth-piece, letting her agitated voice resound in the large room. She ordered the main screen to display all possible angles of close-ups on the Entry Plug hatch. _Somebody else can watch the Rakbu_, she thought. Unit-01 lay on its back, immobile, blocking all access to the thoracic hatch. It was held down by 500 tons of dead weight, a design fault someone would pay dearly for. That the someone could be, or even _had been_, Shinji was too painful to think about. At least he was not an active target anymore, with the Eva bereft of everything resembling life. He was probably only alive because he'd deactivated the Eva by breaking synchronization.

The _Evangelion_ had been built with full knowledge that as a genetically engineered, nano-cyber-pharmaceutically-augmented hybot with its own neural network, it was prone to such organic failings as spasms should the pilot fall unconscious or get desynchronized. Spasms in a 40 metre, 500 ton giant 'mech are generally not a good thing. It had therefore been designed to cut power when the pilot was in no state to pilot, logically enough.

This had saved Shinji Ikari from being shot twice.

What would not save him though, was the repurposed Operator-based non-sentient AI that would guide the synchronization-restart and restore power as soon as he regained consciousness; it had been designed to return the _Evangelion_ to full operational status, so he could fight back against the Rakbu when he recovered. It was a safety feature, you see.

"The Rakbu is charging up for another shot!" Aoba shouted.

"Blow the bridge," Cpt. Katsuragi ordered "pillars A through F"

The Captain had picked the structural supports she wanted demolished mostly at random; struts A through F covered almost an entire third of the bridge. The _Hayakawa Option _dictated that the entire bridge was to be lined with explosives so that any section, or all of them, could be destroyed as a stop-gap measure against an invasion . Perhaps the Captain could have picked only the three pillars needed to dump Unit-01 into the sea.

Perhaps Misato was more concerned for Shinji's life than taxpayer money.

A loud rumble could be heard as the only landline between Yugawara and the GeoFront island was severed. Plastic explosives were triggered by parallel detonators and shoved superheated, V-shaped wedges through the armatures that held the bridge together. Six large explosions crumpled the concrete pillars between the spans. Tons of shattered rock and brick was dumped into the sea, while the steel bars and struts that held the bridge together bent and mangled under the stress—it was over in a fraction of a second, and Unit-01 plummeted into the icy harbour-water. A chill ran down the half-conscious Shinji's spine.

"Commander," Misato said as she spun to face the man "Permission to deploy Unit-00 on an underwater retrieval mission!"

"Granted," Commander Gendo Ikari said, with a calm, cold voice that carried no hint of concern; it never had.

In her head, Misato cycled her quick-dial menu and selected the option marked 'First Child,' a direct line routed through the entirety of the GeoFront with the highest priority; all the Children had that. A similar system had been set up all over Ashigarashimo and Odawara, where Shinji's and Rei's special-issue mobile phones had top priority for packet transmission, even during military blackouts—not that the JSDA were ever supposed to let the Children out of their sight anyway.

"Rei, we're deploying you to the North-Northwest island gate to pick up Unit-01," she transmitted.

"Understood, Captain Katsuragi," she said, pronouncing the title and name as one word.

The Captain turned to Dr Akagi: "Rits," she said as an aside while decrypting Zero-zero's unused launch codes "...did you fix the sonar bug?"

"It's not a..." Ritsuko began, and caught the black-haired woman's stare "Yes, I fixed while we running tests on Zero-Zero; it now defaults to 'off'."

"Good." was Misato's only reply. When she had been fresh out of the National Defence Academy, she'd been deployed to northern Korea in the capacity of a UN Peacekeeper to strike down on rogue Korean Army cells. Her first real action had been an amphibious night-time op; a flanking manoeuvre deploying from a submersible landing-craft.

Nobody had really expected an ex-Soviet-ex-North-Korean submarine to attack their formation. Their first clue had been its sonar against their M94 _Elliot_'s hull. The periodical sonar-pings had, in fact, been their only clue and it had been the most excruciating 30 minutes of Misato's life to wait and hope it didn't fire a torpedo at _her_ landing-craft. She didn't want Shinji to experience the same uncertainty and fear she had that day; she wouldn't wish it on _anyone_.

She launched the second Eva.

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For a split second, Rei could see a narrow beam of blue light shine onto Unit-00's red eye, before the effect was broken by the wall of water pouring into the chamber. She felt the massive force of the water slam against the _Evangelion_, and held onto the joysticks. She could hear a deep metallic sound of the sliding doors locking in place as the level of water quickly rose above her head.

She took a step forwards.

_Unusual,_ were her thoughts concerning the action, for a moment, before she adjusted to the skewered height/weight ratio she experienced.

Her viewscreens flickered, adapting to the underwater light and colour-levels, augmenting the usual green, red and blue with noise-cleaned 3D-maps created from electromagnetic wavelengths outside of the usually visible spectra. Certainly, the kilowatt scale floodlights helped in that regard, illuminating the bluish-black seafloor and bedrock in ways that the weak sun, a waving spot against the water-surface, could not.

She panned the head of Unit-00 over the ground before her and found the wrung span of the island-mainland bridge. The umbilical cable slowly dragged along the seafloor, making the occasional kick or whip upwards as she moved her Eva slowly through the water, going no faster than what the viscosity of the water would permit.

Faster would have been impossible, after all. It wasn't even worth considering, in her mind.

Between the spans that once had connected B and C and C and D, she found Unit-01, immobilized and unsynchronized, yet emitting a weak tracking signal. She turned Unit-00's head to look down upon the white giant as she considered the problem of moving it. Tiny noises erupted in her Entry Plug, telling her that the computers were working, and she was interrupted in her thoughts by a situational read-out of 'Ikari Shinji' the pilot of Unit-01, the Third Child and Commander Ikari's son. In that case, she should retrieve Shinji Ikari as efficiently as possible.

Not that Rei Ayanami could understand why you would want to perform a task with sub-optimal efficiency; it was, by definition, inefficient.

"You're going to have to roll him over to get access to the Entry Plug Rei," she received via cyberlink from Misato "There's just no way to retrieve Shinji from the front."

"Understood, Captain" she replied.

She leant over the white torso of Unit-01 and took hold of the shoulder and hip opposite to her, and pulled. Then she hauled, because mere pulling was not sufficient. The 500 tons gave way and the Test Type _Evangelion_ clumsily rolled over, falling towards her Prototype _Evangelion_'s legs. Slowly, like a slow-motion shot from a documentary film, she withdrew before Zero-One fell against the legs and threw her off balance. _Commander Ikari will not be pleased if I _also _get stuck in the water_, she thought. _...nor will Captain Katsuragi or Doctor Akagi._

"OK Rei," she heard the black-haired woman say "now you need to retrieve the Entry Plug; according to Ritsuko, it's fine if you just tear open the rear hatch."

"Should that be my first option?" Rei asked without intonation.

"Yes!" Misato almost shouted at her "Now."

"Roger." Rei complied while she leant down and tore the rear hatch open. The lock-bolts tried to resists, but against the strength of Unit-00, they snapped like dry twigs. She looked down into the artificially fleshy interior of the Test Type and reached three fingers down. _This will be difficult,_ she thought.

As carefully as she could, she reached down and gripped around the cylindrical end of the Plug, and slowly, carefully, twisted the outer shell two fifths of a turn, counter-clockwise. She exhaled. Intuitively, _and that is not a good way to judge_, the white Entry Plug felt fragile, ready to break in her hand at any moment, like the eggs she had used to practice motor control in her new arm. _And that would not be good._ She felt her prosthetic right arm twitch. It was uncomfortable.

She let the white cylinder rest in her right hand and reached towards it with the left; because of the electromagnetic disturbances from the charged particle beam that had fried most of the un-shielded electronics, the only com-lines still working were the most vital ones. The protocol for 'underwater remote emergency floatation device activation' was not in that category.

This meant Rei had to use the 'underwater _manual_ emergency floatation device activation protocol,' an elaborate, if accurate, name for a five-millimetre datajack port on the rear end of the Entry Plug and the accompanying drivers. Rei was very relieved that the manipulator-mounted cyberlink-cable was controlled by an internal computer and not very dependent on her ability to guide a 5mm jack into a 5mm wide hole with a 40-metre _Evangelion_ armed suit at 50% synchronization while underwater.

She felt she was not quite up to that task.

A cable, of about the same radius as a tennis-ball, slid out of a hole in the wrist of Unit-00s arm and coiled itself through the water, twisting and bending using tiny hydraulic, pseudo-muscular tubes. Guided by a laser, it reached towards the datajack in Shinji Ikari's Entry Plug. A large octagonal block at the end touched the hull of the Plug and aligned itself, then pushed water out of its cup-like interior with a high-pressure, non-conducting and very dry gas. Once both the datajack and cable-throat were dry, an iris opened, and the 5 millimetre jack reached out and formed a stable physical connection with the Entry Plug.

"Wait, Rei," Misato ordered, "Just give Lt. Hyuga enough time to download the medical data."

"Roger." Rei replied. She didn't have to wait long, the entire medical read-out of Shinji Ikari's determinable physical and mental state taking no longer than a fraction of a second to transfer, even with an entire _Evangelion_-unit acting as a relay, prioritizing Shinji's packets, by default, at a lower priority than its own situational data.

"OK, you can release him now Rei," she heard, "The JSDA are right above you to pick him out of the sea"

She let go of the Entry Plug. Hatches on the side popped and white panels drifted off in the weak streams as gas expanded into thick rubber balloons and pontoons. Unevenly, it rose upwards, so she stabilized it with a flat hand until she could no longer reach it. For a while, she could see the Entry Plug against what remained of sun-light underwater; a disturbed plume in the water-surface, but then it too disappeared. She turned to the pilot-less Eva and lifted it up on Unit-00's left shoulder. It was a difficult task, and her Eva sank a few meters into the ground. _Walking back will be strenuous,_ she thought as she began to trudge back to the GeoFront island.

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Kotani peered over the railings of the coast-guard vessel, and down at the white cylinder that broke the surface of the water, splashing water upwards onto the hull. He looked up and towards the GeoFront island. Just above the skyline he could just see the edge of the sky-blue crystalline octahedral Rakbu; the same kind of alien monster that had wrecked the JDS _Nagato_, her sister ship and the destroyer escort. _...except they look nothing alike, any of them,_ he thought as he wrinkled his eyebrows at it, a futile action that in no way reflect what he really wanted to happen to the Rakbu, but the best he could muster against it. It would be even more futile, not to mention _fatal_ to actively engage it with heavier weapons that his fearsome eyebrows, but damned if he didn't want to.

He looked down at the four junior seamen he was supposed to supervise; they sat in a dinghy and wrapped the Entry Plug in thick steel cables and bolted them together at the ends to form a harness.

"Hey, you dumbasses!" he shouted them "Do you really think this thing is evenly balanced?" he said and pointed at the white cylinder when they looked up at him "If you'd looked at the files I gave you dumbnuts, you'd have noticed the rear forth contains almost half of the mass. If you'd lifted it in the crane like that—" he pointed at the cable loops they were about to fasten "—it'd tilt and the pilot in there would bounced around inside."

He looked at by far most stupid pair of sailors, Seaman Fujimoto and Seaman Murakami, widen their eyes in dawning realization at what they'd been about to do. He wasn't planning to let them get away with just that: "That kid's practically a real hero, and he's wounded, and you were going to handle him like he was your shut-down sexdoll android? What kind of Seamen, heck, what kind of _people_ are you two?"

"Now get him up here, he needs medical attention!" Kotani finished berating them.

"Yes, _Kaisō-chō_!" they said.

As the Entry Plug rose up and swung onto the deck, JMSDF medics ran over to it, together with the rest of Kotani's command and an underwater breaching team that wondered what the heck they were doing this many meters above water. Kotani, who didn't have anything left to do now really, leant against the railing with his back and watched with worry as the breaching team pried open the door to the white cylinder and found their legs covered in a lukewarm, viscous and now radioactive liquid. It was transparent and slightly pinkish, and the young boy they laid out on a stretcher—_that poor guy can't be more than sixteen!_ Kotani realized. _What has it come to, when children are the frontline soldiers and soldiers and sailors are the kid's fucking _backup_?_

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"Pilot Shinji Ikari has been retrieved by the Japanese Maritime Ess-Dee-Eff and is receiving emergency medical attention." Makota reported in the ECCO CIC. A faint smile of relief appeared on Misato's face.

"Good," she said "I want to be informed A.S.A.P when he regains consciousness," she turned to an android Operator "Get me a report on everything the American Empire known from their encounter with the Rakbu," she turned to Dr Akagi: "Ritsuko, find out what kind of beam the Rakbu used, and what we can do to defend against it."

The blonde woman raised an eyebrow at her former room-mate's newfound resoluteness (although, really, she had always known that Misato had potential for that form of resolve; she had not been overly surprised when Misato had been transferred from the JSDA-proper to the Control Office. Oh, sure, Ritsuko had been surprised that out of their thousands of officers they'd selected a young low-ranking one and hurriedly promoted her to the rank of Captain, but when she came down to it, a latent tactical genius with a devout hate for the Annunaki that bordered on _specieism_ really was the logical choice, no?).

"And if Major Kusanagi has regained command of the local JSDA forces, I want her to meet me in conference room C-22."

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There were many uses of the parks that were scattered over Ashigrashimo district; for one, they could be walked in; You could sit on the benches; The grass and lakes made for an idyllic landscape for a picnic, romantic or otherwise. They were not drop-off points; and if one were especially perverted and so inclined, _yes_, one could have indecent, illegal sex in them, though it should be noted that the small pebbles from the paths that had been kicked onto the grass would make such an activity painful for the involved parties.

But now that the cities were empty and dead, with the population hidden away, safe in nuke-proof bunkers, they were nothing but huge, open surfaces where nothing of value lived; perfect if you needed to blow something up, or, as was the case, get blown up in a way that didn't destroy too much of the surrounding city.

Especially those parks that overlooked Yugawara from atop a hill, so that tall buildings wouldn't become shorter in the process, or end up with the general shape and texture of a Swiss cheese when the giant octahedron shot though everything and everyone stupid enough to stand between it and its target.

It was generally agreed that wanton destruction of Ashigarashimo District was _not_ preferred to the alternative of leaving it standing.

A single missile burst shot out from the middle of the park, headed straight for the Rakbu. White and grey smoke from the expunged propellant trailed behind it as it soared towards the sky-blue sinister geometry. When it reached the death-zone that surrounded the Rakbu, it made a sharp turn. The internal logic of the repurposed anti-aircraft missile dictated that it would skirt the edges of total annihilation for a while—then strike.

Which it did, to no effect.

Strictly speaking, that was untrue. Right after the air-defence missile exploded against the technically airborne Ishkur, the Rakbu effected a beam of hypervelocity charged particles right back at the source; an Operator android handling a man-portable surface-to-air missile launcher. It was vaporized, together with a lot of park ground.

Another relativistic beam shot out and melted the communications relay van that the JSDA had used to control the Operator. An armoured wheel shot off in an arbitrary direction, knocking a carbonised tree over. The once peaceful recreational park had turned from an idyllic throwback to bygone times of pre-urbanization, to something borne out of a history book covering WWIII; the grass had been lit alight and flames licked up along the thick bodies of the few trees still standing. Two huge craters reached across the government estate, a blackish-brown slag of melted rock and soil, as if it had been precision-bombed by a gung-ho fighter pilot with some particular hatred of trees. The nearby buildings, once majestic mirrors facing each other towards infinity, had been scattered with soil and ash, visages marred by windows broken by impact with ballistic vegetation.

Batou surveyed the damage from afar with a pair of binoculars, and let a silent 'damn' slip his mouth, before turning to Togusa. One pair of obviously prosthetic eyes met a biological pair.

"So, should we program the next missile for three turns, or should we skip ahead to four?" the younger of the two asked.

"Three." Batou declared "The Major says that ECCO wants as many data points as possible"

"She's really letting them boss her around, isn't she?" Togusa said while he set the coordinates to make three sharp turns on its way to the Rakbu.

"We all have to pretend we're their assigned lapdogs." Batou said, not even masking his angry tone of voice "I don't envy the Major one bit having to confer with those assholes,"

"...don't think that I like having to stand by while they use child-soldiers any more than you do." Togusa said while raising both hands defensively.

Batou grumped and continued loading a lifeless Operator into the Pietàic arms of an urban-camouflage Tachikoma. Personally, he thought the blue colour suited their childlike innocence better, at least until they started _firing_, whereupon the colour was inappropriate.

Gleefully, charmingly inappropriate, he might add.

The Tachikoma drove off with the Megatech-produced android in its arms and a handheld anti-aircraft missile in its pod. While the Android could have walked to the idyllic-park-turned-battlefield under its own power, it would have been awkward and time-consuming, as the military-grade gynoids had not been built to traverse any terrain more difficult than the plane floors of office building (and possibly the stairs joining two floors) and therefore not as suited as the Tachikoma with its long flexible leg-feet.

Military Training Androids _were_ built to traverse such terrain. They were the most advanced and robust automaton robots not on the market, years ahead of the civilian sector. They were built to be near-perfect replicas of a human, with a constant peak physical condition and the ability act and plan creatively, although the cognitive similarities with actual biological humans ended there, on a clear line of non-sapience and non-sentience and a strong adherence to vulnerable patterns, a problem solved by giving them a whole lot of different patterns to chose between; they were used to represent the OpFor in live-fire exercises and unlike the civilian market models, they were fully capable of firing firearms with precision and accuracy.

Why then, did the ostensible JSDA-force that Section 9 was disguised as, use the inferior gynoid Operators with their inability to fire even a handgun properly, lacking the strength to do a human's work, and being built mostly as impeachable firewalls and secretaries, replacing the job of the Office Lady in the corporate and/or military landscape of Japan?

For one, the proper live-fire exercise automatons were hideously expensive, with a price tag more than five times that of the simplistic, white-blooded female shell, and when all you needed was something capable of autonomously targeting a sitting duck the size of an aircraft carrier and pulling the trigger, the Operator would suffice.

The SIGINT (signal Intelligence) techies wouldn't be very happy to have their cute glasses-wearing Operators returned in fluid form though...

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The general atmosphere in the Fifth Sub-district nuclear/general-purpose shelter was less than optimal. Among other things, it was overcrowded to about 150% of its recommended capacity by refugees fleeing for their lives, and the suddenly mixed-race population was agitating old and new racial tensions. While each individual had their own opinions, the general feeling could be described thusly: the Laotians hated the Vietnamese, who disliked the Thai, none of whom like the Singaporeans, who didn't even like themselves because all _other_ Singaporeans were collaborators to Ka Gael's Republic-slash-Military-Dictatorship and had _of course_ personally helped perpetrate the Purges. The Japanese hated everyone, and everyone hated the Chinese.

And _all_ the refugees had something against the Government, who through the Metropolitan police were tasked with a) keeping the refugees out of the Citizen shelters, and (failing that) b) keeping the refugees from agitating the citizens.

In some cases, it would perhaps have been better if that last order had been the other way around.

To Hikari Horaki, this (though an important social issue that she campaigned for among her apathetic classmates) was of little immediate concern, because she was not in a shelter. Nor, for that matter, was she in Yugawara or any other part of urban Ashigarashimo; she sat at a wooden bench-table at a secluded petrol station along the mountain highway, waiting for Kodama to pay for refilling the fuel tank.

No, her more pressing concern was that her younger sister, Nozomi, was disturbing her in the middle of doing her homework, and her WLAN-enabled laptop was soon running out of power. (If she was an underachiever, she could have downloaded the half-finished essay to her cyberbrain and worked off notes she took during class, but that would entail not completing the extension-questions.)

"Sister, where are we going?" Nozomi asked her, at just the right angle to place Hikari and her laptop partly in the shadow. Incidentally, this also meant that by looking at Nozomi to answer, Hikari essentially had to stare into the sun.

"Please Nozomi," Hikari said with as little irritation as she could manage "I've told you we're going to a mountain-side motel."

"How long will be gone?" her younger sister queried "...and why isn't Father with us?"

"We'll be gone for a few days at most," Hikari replied "and Father has to work. Can you please sit down and do something sensible, like reading that book you have to read for school?"

"But I don't want to read right now! I want to play with my friends!" she replied with a whine that matched the car pulling over to the petrol-station. Hikari looked back down at her essay on Japanese literature, only to have something icy cold touch her neck just above her neural ports. She yelped as icy droplets slid down her spine.

"Lighten up!" Kodama said and passed Hikari the can of soda she'd pressed against her neck, before throwing one into the awaiting hands of Nozomi. "Ignore your homework, for once. There'll be plenty of time to work on that stuff at the motel; you won't have anything else to do while we're up there."

Hikari looked up at her older sister.

"Besides, it's not like you will ever slow down enough to enjoy the view," Kodama continued and struck out her arm in the direction of the city in the yellow-red evening sun. The eighth-sphere shaped solar generators, giant apartment complexes that stood hundreds of meters tall and faced south towards the harbour covered the rest of the city in a reddish veil, while the sun hanging low in the sky in the west could be seen as a long plume across the blue ocean beyond the two cities at the shore. Against the reach of the growing urban sprawl lay the mountainside covered in dark green trees, running down from right in front of her, all the way down to the lower stretch of the highway to Odawara, which acted as a border between the urban city and undisturbed forest. "Which, I might add, is magnificent."

Hikari had to admit that.

"Hey, Class Rep!" she heard... _Suzahara?_ shout. _What is he doing here?_ She turned, and spotted two of the three Stooges standing by an older car, together with its owner, the (in her opinion) much more respectable Mr Suzahara.

"Suzahara, Aide, why are you here?" she dryly asked as they approached her table.

"Our parents decided to evacuate us rather than seeking shelter in the city," Aide explained "so I'm hitching a ride with Mr Suzahara to a mountain-side motel that the JSDA has declared in a safe-zone. What about you, Class Rep?"

_But, but, but that's where I and my sisters are going to stay!_ Hikari searched her mind for a Sufficiently Polite reply, only to be interrupted by her own sister: "Mr Suzahara, is Kana with you?"

"Sorry, she's still in the hospital." the father of the girl in question replied.

"Oh." Nozomi said without masking the disappointed tone in her voice.

Mr Suzahara turned to Kodama: "Ms Horaki, if it is not too much to ask, would it be possible for my son and Kensuke Aide to get a r—" Hikari struggled to maintain her composure._No, not that..._ Her eyes widened a little, and she took a deep breath. "...ide with you to the mountain-side hotel? I really have to get back to work."

"Sure," her older sister-and-most-heinous-and-treacherous-guardian replied.

_Stuck in a car with Suzahara-the-idiot and Aide-the-freak..._ Granted, Suzahara was generally kind enough to be silent if she frowned enough at him, but if the two of them started talking, she really could not stand having them sitting behind her in the car.

Then she realized that it was Nozomi's turn to ride shotgun.

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Major Kusanagi walked with decisive steps, for no particular reason, into Conference Room C-22 for the second time that evening, making quick glances at the faces of the people present. Present were Dr Akagi, 2nd Lt. Ibuki, Cpt. Katsuragi and 2nd Lt. Hyuga. For so few people, the room was oversized. It was a large room that reached out from the only door, and did not really end, as the carpeted floor and blackish-grey ceiling tiles met a wall of LCD screens set to display a view of the city, giving the impression of unlimited reach. In fact, the screens gave an even more expansive panorama than windows, as the display was perhaps a little _too_ real. The meeting room tried to both cause claustrophobia (from the low, pressing ceiling) and agoraphobia (from the perceived lack of walls) It was not the ideal conference room, but Cpt. Katsuragi seemed to have a special love for it. _Perhaps because the chairs spin_, the Major thought to herself, unaware that the exact same comments had been mentally directed at some unseen and hypothetical future observer by Ritsuko minutes before.

"Have a seat, Major," Misato said as she leant back in one of the cybernetic chairs in the room; a plastic and synthetic fabric model with VR laser projectors, cyberlink ports in the neck area, and orders of magnitude more options than anyone actually using the chairs would ever need. Perhaps, if ECCO spent less money on chairs, they could afford more Eva-units?

The Major sat down, and the Captain immediately began the meeting. "Please present the JSDA report, Major Kusanagi." A ballpoint pen held between the index and middle fingers tapped lightly against the wooden table in a 4/4 beat.

"The target," the Major began. A picture of the some-shade-of-blue octahedron underlined her words, "will fire at any perceived threat within a range of 4 kilometres..." Image of a JSDA Operator android carrying a anti-aircraft missiles launcher being hideously melted. "...although the Coast Guard has not had any issues with patrol boats within that range." Image, with tactical diagram, of a Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force patrol vessel inside the 'death-zone,' the deck-mounted 20mm cannon pointed haphazardly in the direction of the Rakbu. "It will also retaliate against any hostile fire with extreme prejudice." More high-speed footage of vaporizing androids, captured by sheer luck at the very moment the plasmoid plume of burning air the relativistic particle beam shoves ahead of itself hit the cybershells. The skin had been flayed off by the heat, and the white plastic used to make the shell was rapidly melting. In the eyes, if one squinted a bit, could be seen it begging for mercy. "However," the Major said without any apparent appreciation, "there has been some success with guided munitions set to make _at least_ six sharp turns before heading for the target."

"What about the AT field?" Misato asked. Hyuga looked hurriedly up into the ceiling, a common gesture when accessing external memory.

"The AT field has survived direct contact with two 10 kilo-ton nuclear warheads detonated within ten seconds of each other, and continued to take fire from 68 carrier-based fighter-bomber aircraft simultaneously—the technical specifications should be in this meeting's library," Hyuga stopped speaking for a few seconds, backlit by grainy, looped footage of Imperial American Navy aircraft being shot to pieces. "what is _interesting_," he continued "Is this footage here—" he motioned towards the screen and enlarged the film "where can see that a missile breaks through the AT field at the one-minute-two-seconds mark of the battle, going by the detonation of the first nuclear warhead," a small shape, almost unrecognizable as anything more than something longer-than-wide followed by a white streak, had been circled in red in a freeze-frame, then moved slowly towards the Rakbu as the centi-seconds ticked by, and detonated against the spotless surface—which was still spotless afterwards.

Ritsuko raised a hand and did not wait before speaking. Fingers mechanically drumming across her PDA and a number of images were dragged onto an available viewscreen, while one arm pointed at it. "Here we can see the phase-shifted space as its taking fire—it actually radiates in the visible spectrum, which according to our current theories means its several times stronger than Zero-Zero and Zero-One's AT fields at anything but point-blank range..."

"Thank you Rits," Misato said "By the way, what is the status of Zero-Zero and Zero-One?"

"Ah," Ritsuko dug through her manila folder of paper printouts scattering a few onto the table. There was a very subdued physical sigh, and a mental one: _At times like these I almost wished I had a cybernetic brain... Almost._ Maya hurriedly reached towards the papers and tried to hand the back to the doctor. There was some fumbling, but in the end Ritsuko had a bundle of white papers in her hands, and Maya was blushing very slightly. "Zero One's ventral armour was melted down to the endoskeleton. It was fortunate the central control unit stayed intact. It's currently being refitted with spare armour plating from Zero-Zero, but until we can have thermal plating airlifted here from the Japanese Space Agency, this is a token gesture,"

"And Zero-Zero?" the Captain inquired. There was a slight hope in her mind, expressed as lifted eyebrows.

"The First Child had no problems with synchronization," Maya begun "...but there are still errors in the feedback system,"

"So we have nothing that can engage the target close enough to break the AT field?" the Captain asked.

"Even with JSDA support, it's highly unlikely that Zero-Zero or Zero-One could get close enough to cause AT-field-annihilation. I'd also have serious doubts on Zero-Two's capabilities, pending the latest report from the Tännhauser Foundation," Ritsuko stood stone-faced in the sprawling room. She whispered a small 'no' to herself, giving a second opinion that it was perhaps best if no one but herself heard.

"On that note," Cpt. Katsuragi said leaning forwards while keeping her hands busy with capping and uncapping a cheap ballpoint pen "how quickly can we get Unit-02 here?"

Hyuga rolled his eyes, accessing external data: "Not in time. We can't airlift Zero-Two until the _Sergeyn-Roussel-Iwamoto_ deal is approved, and even if it left from Wilhelmshaven by ship today, it wouldn't arrive before about two weeks."

"Ah, damn," the Captain said under her breath. _This just isn't fair! It's just sitting there, digging slowly though our defensive layers with a pulsed laser,_ she recalled the images in her head, of spectrum-altered images of the floating octahedron firing thousands of pulses of stimulated, focused light at the ground from its bottom apex, throwing soil and armature up as vaporized clouds of gas and liquid blobs _and it doesn't even_ care_ about our efforts to stop it. All it does it to mechanistically _destroy _everything we throw at it, as if it was insignificant. I'll show you, you stupid math-y thing, that humans are better than you. We can overpower you, we can outsmart you, we can outran—_ "Haha!" the Captain exclaimed with newfound confidence. A wicked grin flashed as she looked at the people before her, and they looked back with curiosity, or in the case of Maj. Kusanagi, a lifted eyebrow and an expression of very subtle disbelief.

"Lieutenant Hyuga, get me the data on the experimental particle accelerator cannon the Japanese Advanced Research Institute is developing."

"Yes Captain," Makota replied, while bringing a giant diagram of the experimental particle cannon onto the wall-screens, stretching from wall to wall. Available whitespace was filled with diagrams detailing the blooming in both vacuum and STP-conditions-atmosphere and detailed notes on performance and design that ECCO were privy to only because they were attached to the JSDF.

"Hmmmm..." the Captain thought out aloud while running numbers in her head "If we can overcharge it to 120% normal efficiency, and upgrade the cooling system, we should be able to deliver a killing shot from over 4 kilometers away."

"You can't be serious?" the Major stated in disbelief, forcing it to a question.

"Of course I'm serious Major," the black-haired woman replied "There's no way we can engage it in close quarters, so we'll have to outrange it."

"You're asking for a continuous beam of charged particles from an overcharged, overheating experimental prototype weapon to be focused on the same spot of a mobile target for over _seventeen_ seconds, by a _sixteen_-year-old," the Major stated.

"With a little luck, it'll all be fine – you'll be providing suppressive fire, after all." the Captain responded optimistically.

"That's not the issue, Captain Katsuragi." Maj. Kusanagi said with a harsh undertone "You're running your margins too thin. The idea of keeping the beam focused on the target for seventeen seconds while under fire is absolutely preposterous!"

"It's our only chance Major," Cpt. Katsuragi said. "It will have to work."

_Technically, I outrank you, you know._ A severely annoyed Major thought. _No, that's a childish and self-righteous thought. I didn't even know the Rakbu existed until a month ago_— She had been being dragged into a video-conference room by the Minister of Internal Affairs, in person, and the Chief of Staff Ground of the JSDA in mid-July (that had been her vacation, damnit!) for a briefing on an alien giant. _Captain Katsuragi, on the other hand, has spent eleven years of her military careers planning war against armies of these things._ Her graduation-essay from the National Defence Academy, '_A Tactical Analysis of Current Counter-Alien Warfare Capabilities __**[Top Secret] [Classified – Eyes Only][Seraphic/X8]**_ was one Maj. Kusanagi owned a copy of and had based her current attack plans off. _Admit it Motoko, she knows more about what's going on than you do._She let out a subdued sigh _Even if she's not tactically sound, from a strategic standpoint we have to work with the available tools._

_I just want a bigger toolbox_

Perhaps the Chief could call in few favours from people he knew?

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Overall, Cpt. Misato Katsuragi was not pleased. This came mostly from the enormous mounds of paperwork that she had to fill in to transfer the particle cannon; one paper signed by both CEO Gendo Ikari and Vice-President Kozo Fuyutsuki, which she had to hand to the JSDA General stationed in the area; General Kawabata, who then signed a piece of paper that she had to personally bring to Chief of Staff Ground General Kawamoto, who gave her a hard time about her risky tactics. Then, she had to get the signatures of _Commander_Gendo Ikari and _Deputy-Commander_ Kozo Fuyutsuki to bring to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and a boatload of other people-in-fancy-suits, but _finally_ she now stood with a piece of paper signed by the Minister of Defence, authorizing the immediate transfer of one "gigawatt-scale linear magnetic particle accelerator" to ECCO complete with the "necessary adjustments and modifications to ensure continued operation in hostile environments" and _blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda just hand it over, will you!_

"You're not... serious?" the slightly overweight Director of Research asked her "We've worked for five years on miniaturizing the Linear Accelerator Cannon to its current scale," his right hand man continued "and now you're going to just take it? This company will not accept—"

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice" Misato said, smiling a smile of mixed general happiness and indignant _schadenfreude_ "ECCO needs the ell-ay-cee to defend Japan"

"This is a joke!" the Director's right-hand-man said with indignation "This is an act of deliberate corporate sabotage on behalf of our enem—"

Misato frowned. "Shut up. This isn't about your petty corporate rivalries. This is about _saving_ the _world_—" she emphasized the words by leaning towards the Right Hand Man and jabbing her index finger repeatedly against his torso "—which we just can't do if I have to be faced with opposition at _every_" Jab. "_step_" Jab. "_of the __bloody_" Jab twice, then again harder. "_**way!**_ Jab, then grab tie, yank and growl.

The Director leant forwards and placed his elbows on his desk. His hands met in a delicate steeple, intersecting at the second digit of each finger and the thumbs resting against each other. He sat straight, raising his grey moustache far above the apex of his arms. "What do you want it mounted on?" he asked calmly

"But Director!" the Right Hand Man exclaimed, then silenced himself at his boss' eyes peered up at him where he stood.

"That," Misato said, and pointed out the window behind them, where the titanic shape of Unit-00 stood solemnly against the setting sun. Its umbilical cord trailed down from its cybernetic spine and lay in a pile on the highway, connected to a battery of military power generator trucks. It needed too many of them to be a viable alternative in mobile combat, but it was possible to transport it that way, or perhaps more correctly, let it transport itself that way while dragging a trail of power trucks behind it, insofar as it was possible to move Unit-00 faster than a car without turning the road into tarmac-based substitute for melted cheese "...is what I want the LAC mounted to" she said as the two men looked agape at the white Cyclops.

"You have _two_ of them?" the Director's right-hand-man said weakly, as he stared into the red eye of the 'mech.

"Well, I want it so the LAC can be mounted to either one as a modular system," Misato said with a shrug "within the hour, please. See ya!"

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Kozo Fuyutsuki carried an old ink pen across another document, signing with his own name and title, which for purposes of buying space-shuttle thermal shielding to a private enterprise like a Tachibana Labs subsidiary was "Vice-President," as opposed to "deputy commander" or "Doctor" though the latter he had not used for much, _much_ too long. Perhaps, if Ikari succeeded, he could return to a research position at a University.

Or perhaps there would be no need for professors and universities anymore if everything went as planned.

He dipped the pen in the inkwell just as his video-phone rang. A holographically projected screen appeared over his desk, a faint blue rectangle with a pair of hypercards layered on top. The top one was his secretary, a standard model ubiquitous in the Japanese corporate landscape, (and with minor variations in skin colour and facial structure they were quite popular outside of Japan and Asia too) about to tell him who was calling, and what was so important he had to handle it personally. _Though,_ Fuyutsuki thought _...I probably won't have to handle it personally anyway, because most of the calls that reach me are headed for the young man in the office next door,_ That office, incidentally, was labelled "Ikari – Chief Executive Officer"

"'Avalon, Josephine' wants to speak to CEO Gendo Ikari" the android reported. Its (or perhaps 'hers' would have been more correct; he had had some interesting, if inconclusive philosophical discussions about anthropomorphism with regards to emerging intelligence and AI research with Yui. He longed back to those days, though a little voice in the back of his head reminded him that what he was feeling was bloated nostalgia. In reality, unless they found an available and secluded broom closet, Naoko would always wedge herself into the conversations proclaiming the superiority of post-singularity AIs.) ...anyway, its circular white hypercard swung down and gave way to Ms Avalon's live-video feed.

The hypercard was large and carried a high-quality signal in full resolution with it. The woman it presented made full use of the opportunities of that signal; an expensive, handcrafted and unique cybershell sat there and smiled at him from an elegantly, if sparsely, furnished office. Ms Avalon looked like she could be no older than 25, but since Fuyutsuki had worked with the exact same person fifteen years ago for Tachibana Labs, she had to be almost twice that age.

"Kozo," she said "your android informs me that Mr Ikari is busy at the moment, and that I have to _wait_—" the emphasis was sharp in contrast to the usual, melodic voice "—to speak with him. I am aware that you're currently busy fighting," her eyes darted to the side, looking at something outside Fuyusuki's digital window to her office. "...somehow, the Rakbu threat, but that's precisely why I'm calling. So, please Kozo, put me through."

Fuyusuki opened a line to Gendo's office. A video-feed from a simple, aged webcam appeared next to Ms Avalon's face – Gendo had no cyberbrain, and had in private expressed to Fuyutsuki some concern, not quite fear, of what IGIGI would do should his thoughts become nothing but an elaborate cipher.

"Josephine Avalon wants to speak with you—" the grey-haired man transmitted to the speakers of Gendo's stationary computer.

"Tell her it will have to wait," Gendo interrupted "...with my most sincere apologies." he amended.

Fuyutsuki did not smile, nor did he frown, but he did _wonder_, before completing what he was going to say: "...about the Rakbu."

"Ah..." Gendo voiced "I'll take this call in my office then."

_What does that woman want?_ Fuyutsuki asked as Ms Avalon's face disappeared from his desk with a 'Thank you Kozo' and a smile. The business-rivalry between AvalonCorp and Tachibana Labs had been going since 2017, when Josephine Avalon had left ECCO's predecessor to form her own mega-corporate software/hardware empire in the Western hemisphere. The relations had become even more bitter when AvalonCorp had launched a full-out format-war over the Internet Protocols with Tachibana Labs and lost, and Gendo had felt pressured (Ikari hadn't actually confided that to Fuyutsuki; it was merely something the old man could tell from his former student's behaviour) by IGIGI's decision to employ AvalonCorp to build Dilmun. _That woman is sharp like a razor and more cunning than a fox that used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University, then left the position to become head of the United Nations High Commission of International Cunning Planning._ This did not bode well.

The office next door lit up. Like the ECCO CIC and the more extravagant meeting rooms, it did not as much have walls as it had gigantic, wall-sized holes to the outside world that just happened to be holding the ceiling up – a ceiling, it might be mentioned, that was equally unhelpful in limiting the perceived-but-illusionary size of the room with its faintly reflective black finish, which together with the floor made the room stretch towards infinity in all directions, with Gendo Ikari's desk being nothing but a quite real Russel's Teapot floating in the middle of whatever the man chose to view in such resolution (images of malignant cell-growths in the Evas, the few remaining images of Yui Ikari, live satellite feeds from Olduvai Gorge, ancient Summerian texts, select craters on the moon and radio-telescope-photos of Saturn, to name a few) in a rather surreal experience until people regained their balance.

Now, however, he settled for the majestic image of Unit-01 in drydock looming behind him, in the sense that images of a 40 meter biomechanical giant can in any way be considered modest. He peered over a pair or interlocking hands onto the calm and smiling face of Ms Avalon, who took up the wall opposite the old images of the completed Unit-01 – in a rather ironic sense, this meant that Ms Avalon was now just as large and imposing as Unit-01, but Gendo Ikari was not the type of man to let the apparent size of the conniving traitor affect him in any way.

"Nice to see you again, Gendo," Josephine Avalon said, apparently not affected very much either "I'm terribly sorry to hear what happened to your pet project..."

"I'm sure you are, Ms Avalo—" he said, only to be interrupted:

"Oh please Gendo. We've known each other for fifteen years; it's Josephine." she said without changing her tone, the continued without pause "I'm about to do a product demonstration in Japan next week – I'm sure you must have heard of it, at the Pacific Defence Conference in Kyosho, hmmm?" she paused, the continued as Ikari gave a small nod "To keep this brief, as I'm sure," another brief look somewhere outside the feed's view, "you have better things to do, I have a terrawatt-scale particle cannon in a ship in Kyosho South-West Harbour that outclasses anything the Japanese military-industrial complex could build, and I've been informed by an official from your government that you can put it to better use than my company can." She gave a short, polite chuckle. "And the way my paradigms influence my views," Gendo took notice of the sudden complexity and redundancy of her vocabulary; it signalled a short speech, "makes me believe that the two of us, not just as humans beings but as _parents_ have a duty to the future of our children to work together to ensure their survival in the face of alien threats, not only for ourselves, but also to accelerate us into a new future at their childhood's ends."

As a full-body cyborg, such things as 'pausing for breath' was redundant in a biological sense; Gendo had always felt that Josephine only bothered to do so for dramatic effect, or to clarify a point, which meant that it was his job to note when she did so, to work out what she had to gain from doing so.

"I understand," Gendo said "Your offer is appreciated; while our current weaponry suffices," (that was _technically_ not a lie, just a _very_ flawed version of the truth) "my staff appreciates large margins," _They also appreciate __margins_ Gendo thought "Will an immediate electronic transaction be in order?"

"Do you have time to wait for my plane to arrive from London?" Ms Avalon asked in a deadpan tone, while a number of small windows littered her feed with the transaction-windows and an electronic copy of the contract; 10,000,000,000 ¥€$ for an R400 Production Model Heavy Particle Accelerator Cannon. Gendo filled in the company account number and security codes from memory, before identifying himself by voice and fingerprint (he could also have used a retina-scan, but for some odd reason he preferred not to, perhaps for the same reason he couldn't use a ghostkey)

"We'll need to meet in person to handle the paperwork for this... since, I might note, I have it on good authority that you've ordered the metropolitan police to arrest me if I ever come within a kilometre of your GeoFront, might I suggest we simply meet over a dinner in Kyosho next week?" she said, without letting her voice change.

"That will be in order." Gendo replied, with the exact same tone of voice.

"Excellent. Bring your son; I want to meet him." Josephine Avalon said, then logged out leaving a large **[CALL ENDED]** in place of her live feed.

_My son...?_ Gendo asked himself _What could she possibly want with __him__? I wouldn't put it above her to attempt seducing him (which would be a rather fruitless effort, as he knows_nothing_, but it could nonetheless become a distraction at the least opportune moment) but in my presce—She has a daughter about his age, doesn't she?_ His fingers ran over his keyboard, verifying his suspicions. He let out a deep, exasperated sigh; _Now I have to personally teach Shinji how to resist seduction, because I doubt Cpt. Katsuragi can teach him that, despite doing her best to walk around half-naked in front of him._ Gendo pondered this further while he handed the respective military commander her new, bigger stick: _There is of course Agent Ryōji, but then I might end up with the reverse problem . . . which I could have used to my benefit, if Shinji hadn't been so weak._

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For the _n_th time, Shinji Ikari woke up under the by-now-familiar ceiling of a hospital, aching from every part of his body worth mentioning (then again, they were only mentionable_because_ they hurt). He would have liked to say there he'd fought a giant monster, because then at least he'd have the excuse "there was a giant monster" when asked why he was bedridden (_Not that anyone I know cares to ask_ he thought to himself) but all he could remember was that he had no idea what the giant monster looked like, and that he'd fallen unconscious during the battle – maybe he'd actually seen it, but forgotten? Maybe he'd won and then he didn't have to get back in Unit-01, and then he could denounce his father, return to being a normal teenager and find true love while he was at it? _Yeah right,_ he said to himself while face down on a pillow. _When 'find true love' is the most realistic of those options, you know my life sucks._

Then a beautiful girl with smooth skin and strong blue hair that framed her face in fashionable asymmetry walked in with a meal (that is to say, she walked in at the same time a nurse android delivered a meal – she did not, for quite obvious reasons, carry the meal herself), and Shinji suddenly had to re-evaluate the whole "suck" part, at least on a short-term basis.

Ayanami gave him a quiet, robotic "good evening" and placed herself by his bedside, staring in the direction of the windows that opened to the inside of the GeoFront. The light that shone in from the giant glass and fiberoptic slits was a translucently replicated bluish of the night sky above. Unlike Ashigarashimo district, the GeoFront itself was not a commercialized landscape and the square kilometres were not a neon jungle, but rather something taken out of a film noir and presented as full-colour photography.

"At 20:00, we are to meet at Shooting Range C2 for training in marksmanship and sniping." Rei began without notice, as the android put down his meal on the table next to him "At 23:00, we are to attend a Mission Briefing in conference room 24 F. At 23:30 or earlier if possible, we are to scramble for preliminary launch in Unit-00 and Unit-01. At 24:00, Operation Yamabiko will commence." she continued as the andoird left.

"Thanks." Shinji mustered "...I think," was said more under his breath. _Wait, get dressed_ Shinji thought to himself _Am I laying here in just my underwear – how embarra—_ Shinji's cheeks turned a bright red when he realized that he'd lifted the sheets off himself sometime between the 'twisting in pain' and 'check if I'm only in my underwear' parts of his day. He wasn't only in his underwear, because he was completely naked. _Oh god, one of those spider-tanks are going to burst in here right now and kill me for indecency in front of Ayanami, aren't they?_

His thoughts of an all-too-soon-death were interrupted by something heavy but soft landing on his legs. He took his right arm away from him face to look at what Ayanami had just dropped on his legs; it was a white plastic bag, transparent enough for him to see a black, grey and white-patterned square thing inside it.

"This is you new flight suit." Ayanami informed him.

"Why do I need a new flight suit?" he asked as he squinted at Rei.

"Because the old has been destroyed" she offered. Shinji could almost swear there was a quizzical tone to her question, as if she wasn't sure what he'd really asked. Then she left without a word.

After hurriedly stuffing his mouth full of rice and soup, thankfully not made by one Captain Katsuragi whose maternal instincts had taken the upper hand (thus irrevocably proving the inferiority of instinct over logic), he reached for the plastic bag and found it contained more than just a new flight suit. It also contained a large, heavy vest-jacket-thingy of some sort and a box of pills with a doctor's order to take two pills twice daily against headaches or radiation poisoning _Okaaaaay, I hope it's the former..._ and small post-it note from Doctor Akagi that read "Take four immediately"

_Not relieving at all, but thank you nonetheless_

When he walked out of the room dressed in an oversized flight suit with the vest-jacket-thingy loose on top, his head was already feeling much better.

Well, to the extent someone guided by a pair of men in dark suits and dark sunglasses around in the bowels of his-father-the-bastard's sinister corporation, knowing that in about four hours he's going to fight a giant alien monster that almost killed him _again_ and that if he doesn't, he and all his friends are going to die can feel much better in the head. Really, he felt like his newest meal was about to leave the second fastest and most disguising way. And that was if the operation went well. There was always the possibility of a fatal stomach wound, after all.

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Shooting Range C2 was a small, temperate environment in the middle of the urban sprawl that filled the GeoFront, like the parks that were scattered over Ashigrashimo District. And like those parks, Shooting Range C2 was about to be shot to pieces.

Provided Shinji and Rei could hit anything, that is.

The Children both held a rifle each, Seburo C6s-or-something-like-that while Cpt. Katsuragi told them how to work the action; they didn't need to know how to fire a semi-automatic police/SWAT-grade sniper rifle for the upcoming battle, but it made training so much easier if they actually had something to learn aiming with, and not just a bunch of theory they could have gotten out of a book.

"I'm not going to teach you everything." a one-eyed man with his hair cut short told Shinji and Rei. His green uniform was labelled with his family name, 'Saito' "Aim at that bottle on the stone hedge." he said and pointed at a stone hedge downrange, with something brown and possibly bottle-like on top.

Shinji squatted down and pushed the stock off the C6 into his shoulder while reaching out with his left arm to stabilize the front-end up the rifle. He tried to align the scope to his eyes, and placed the black plastic ring against his eye-socket. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ayanami merely raising the rifle to her eye while standing.

"Mr Ikari, keep the scope further away from you eye," Saito said. Shinji drew his head back a little, and made a silent growl _Mr Ikari is my _father_, socially neutral honorifics be damned._

"Rei," Misato explained "you want a stable firing platform, and to minimize your silhouette as much as possible." Rei looked up at Cpt. Katsuragi "Go prone." the black-haired woman explained "You too Shinji."

Shinji went from a squat to kneeling, and used his free hand to stabilize himself into a prone position. Then he stuck both elbows into the soft grass; one close to his chest, to hold the rifle against his shoulder, and one further away, to stabilize the front end of the gun; it felt right, at least. He shot a look over to Rei, who was aping his motions. Her blue hair really stood out against the dark grey flight-suit.

"Now you're both resting the rifle against your shoulders and chest," Saito began "so when you breathe, you're going to wobble your aim," Shinji snapped his head back and looked through the scope of his C6, not that he'd been distracted or anything, and found the rect—_crossy thing_ to be wobbling wildly, his view jumping all over the place, as if he wasn't keeping the rifle steady at all. Which he was fairly certain he _was._

"Miss Ayamani, look over here–" Saito said, and pointed at Shinji "lean the front of your rifle on any small elevation, such as the ground over there, you two" Saito's index finger pointed along a convenient ridge in the field in front of the two Children "and don't hold the front of the rifle at all" _Then how do I _aim_?_ Shinji asked mentally _By moving my whole body?_

"In the Eva," Cpt. Katsuragi said "you can use low buildings or hills to balance your rifle—we're building some bipods too"

Shinji shifted his C6 rifle on top of the tiny ridge and let go with his left arm, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. He placed his now free elbow against the ground for support, and awkwardly tried to hold the rifle only with his right hand.

"Now, Mr Ikari, Miss Ayanami," Saito continued "use your left hand to hold the stock of the rifle from the underside." Shinji did as told, and was corrected on his posture. Apparently he should "use his wrist more" to "move his gun up and down and side to side" and all in all he felt there was this odd tone of suggestiveness that probably existed just in his mind so it was all his fault that he was blushing. There might have been _more_ blushing in that case, but overall he'd feel much better if someone _not_ male had been touching him to correct his posture, like, say, to take an example completely at random, Misato (who was helping Rei) or for that matter and for the same reasons, Ayanami (who seemed to be getting the hang of it).

Honestly.

After an hour, much to Shinji's surprise, they actually started firing, as opposed to learning how to lie still and do absolutely nothing. While he realized there were certain differences, Shinji still didn't think it should take an entire hour to teach him how to do what he did on a daily basis.

An hour later, Rei actually managed to hit a target for the first time. _Perfect_ was all Shinji could say to himself _it's a whole hour left, so we'll probably learn a lot about how to hit moving giant aliens that shoot laser beams from their chests from our 40-meter robots during that time. I'm pretty sure they had a section on that in the Employee Handbook._

01010010 01100101 01101001 00100000 00110001 00101110 00110000

A large concrete block stuck out from the seaside mountain-range of Yugawara; a towering, unnatural geometric shape against the jagged lines of trees that covered the south-east side of the mountain (and the south-west, north-west and north-east. The trees were rather indiscriminate) in white and grey against the dark green of the foliage. It would have been fitting, Shinji thought, if there had been the proverbial "quiet before the storm," but despite the universe having determined that his life was to be a tragedy, it had not been generous enough to give him symbolic moments of quiet; lines of military vehicles of various sorts were rumbling all over the mountainside, creating a droning thunder of noise that really ruined the moment. _...and who makes a tragedy with giant robots anyway? Couldn't it have been more like _Throne of Blood_ or something?_

_On second thought, __no__ Most of the characters in _Throne of Blood_ died. My tragedy is more like a juvenile sitcom or _schadenfreude _slapstick humour_.

_Of course,_ Shinji thought as he looked down from atop the concrete block _It's not like I really believ—I'll survive. The alien octahedron attacked me once and I survived. I can do it again._

"Why are you here?" he heard a dry, emotionally disarmed voice behind him say.

"I was... thinking." Shinji said and looked up at Ayanami, "as opposed to whoever planned this whole ordeal." he added _sotto voce_

"What were you thinking about?" Ayanami said and looked at him with a pair of dead, blood-red eyes, as if someone had killed her eyes _...and that doesn't even make any sense. She's just not good at showing emotions, that's all,_ he thought.

"About having to pilot the Eva," Shinji replied "I'm not so sure I want to, really..."

"Why?" Ayanami mechanically asked.

"...it's not that I always get hurt or anything." he snarked "I just don't like the taste of LCL."

"..." Rei said not, and her vague gaze wavered "You're needed to pilot the Eva." she said.

"That's easy for you to say, Ayanami," Shinji said and stood up from a half-foetal position "For some odd reason, it's not very funny to be a child soldier in a giant robot that makes me feel pain while piloting. In fact, it's a horrible experience that I never want to feel again."

"Then don't pilot." Rei offered. "I will pilot in your place."

Shinji looked at Rei. The moon had just risen enough to be seen as a creeping eclipse rising above her blue hair, revealing a thin, curved slice of greyish-white in a hole in the cloud-cover. Her blue hair really stood out against her pale skin and grey flight suit. Unlike his hastily put together and oddly unique uniform, her (equally unique) uniform followed the contours of her young body in a way that his maturing mind found very attractive. If she hadn't been wearing what the JSDA troops had called a "flak vest", he might even have seen the flight suit curve around her shapely breasts. And even after this long conversation, by Ayanami's standards, he still didn't actually know anything about her.

"Why do you pilot?" he settled for asking.

"Because others depend on that choice." Ayanami said after an unusually long pause. "No matter where we go, everyone is connected."

_And what the hell is that supposed to mean?_ Shinji though. "We might die." he blurted out. _Yes Shinji, best pickup-line ever. You even won the award for 'best conversation-opener' too, even though you've been talking to her for a few minutes, just because of how bad it is._

"Death is highly unlikely. I will cover you." Rei said flatly.

01001001 01010011 01001000 01001011 01010101 01010010

A chill breeze swept over the concrete roof of a hotel on the side of the mountainside that faced the Pacific ocean. The flat roof was littered with school-age students from the Esagila Academy, whose ECCO-employed parents were slightly more informed on the actual threat the 3rd Rakbu presented, and were therefore slightly more inclined to make sure their children were as far away from the battle as they could get them. Some parents had sent their children further away, under the belief that the battle could stretch on for days, despite the evidence to the contrary. It was simply amazing how fast a giant octahedral sentient crystal could use redirected, stimulated, radiation-amplified light to carve out a tunnel beneath itself.

It was perhaps one of life's subtle ironies that most of the children who currently populated the rooftop actually wanted to be closer to the upcoming battle.

"Oh, this is gonna be awesome!" Kensuke sprouted, waving his all-purpose PDA/camera/phone around with a data-cable running up to his neck. "There's a rumour in the net that they're deploying _two_ giant robots this time!"

Although the comment was directed at Toji, in attempt to relieve him on the account that two giant robots would kill an enemy faster than one, it drew attention from the adjacent corner of the roof. "They have _two_?" Mana Kirishma yelled quizzically.

"Yeah." Kensuke yelled back "Someone had footage of a giant robot deployed along a closed highway this evening, and its head is different!"

"I can't hear what you're saying!" Mana shouted "Come over here!"

Kensuke attempted to drag Toji after him, because there was no way he was going to talk to a girl unassisted. Not that Kensuke was attracted to her or anything; Toji just got along with the rest of their classmates better than himself, and... well... The daughter of a JSDA General; a girl who _literally_ had a backbone made of steel and trained martial arts after school. It didn't matter that she was still wearing her girly school uniform and was an all-around pleasant and nice girl in and outside class, even to him. He still found her intimidating, and other did not; hence, bring others with you.

Of course, Toji was a little heavier than Kensuke, so the whole 'dragging' part had to be revised.

Mana was standing with a screwdriver in her hand next to a bizarre contraption that looked like a hellish automated sentry gun from a science-fiction classic he'd seen once, mangled together with the innards of a stationary computer. Once he got a closer look, Kensuke could begin to make out individual parts; a powerful zoom lens from the school Photography Club owned (it had the "property of..." label clearly visible) and one of their robotic camera stands, and... _Is that an American military starlight lens?_

"You said ECCO had _two_ giant robots?" Mana stated in lieu of a question.

"Yeah." Kensuke said. "Wait a sec..." he fished his PDA-phone out from his pocket by its data cable and opened up his "Recent Images" shortcut via his neural interface. (after all, why should he use his fingers if he could control technology _with his mind?_) He flipped the large screen over in his hand and presented Mana with two juxtaposed white Eva-units; one giant had one large red eye and the other had a face shaped like a samurai helmet, with two red eyes.

Mana flipped through the rest of the image library. "Hey, can I get copies of these?"

"Uh, sure, I'll mail them to you school email account," Kensuke said "...you like giant robots?"

"I like battleships better," Mana answered "...but to get into the JSDA or the JMSDF officer schools I need to take military history at a university, so I want to be prepared with extra sources, in case I get exam-questions on alien invasions." Mana thoughtfully looked up at the cloudy sky "...at least I think they're aliens," she added. "And the Photography Club though I should be the one to cover this event in any case."

"Yeah, battleships are cool." Kensuke said.

"Wait, with two giant robots..." Mana said and turned to her machine "Neru, what happens if the robotic camera sees two giant robots?"

Fubuki stood up on the other side of the robotic camera and placed a laptop, an older model, on a nearby chair. She placed her hand in her face and groaned. "Great, now I have to rewrite my code again."

"Can't you just hack an open-source Actor-Tracker that has support for multiple targets?" Kensuke asked, with a certain flair that came whenever anyone were stupid enough to ask him about, or talk in his presence about, anything related to computers or military hardware "...but with the "actors" scaled up to 40 meters?"

"...also, my name is not 'Neru'." Fubuki said and turned to Kensuke "I'm sorry Aide, what did you say?"

"You could use an open-source, GNU-licensed Actor-Tracker like ATracker or NohCamera or even AdLibActors 3 (if you're fluent in PERL) and change the dimensions of the target to those of the giant robots, and tell it to track two targets instead of one," Kensuke said at a rate of word-per-second usually appropriate for conmen.

"...that's a good idea," Fubuki offered "except the first two won't run on Communications OS, and why would I ever want to use a programming language what doesn't have an XOR function?"

"XOR functions can't short-circuit by checking the first term," Kensuke ranted "so you have a major problem if you—"

"I know that!" Fubuki said indignantly "But I like conciseness, and I think it's ridiculous that a programming language that prides itself on writing browsers in lines of code can't shorten 'XOR' to 'a-OR-b-equals-some-value-AND-a-not-equals-some-value-equals-true' in the compiler!"

"Uh..." Kensuke began "you mean 'a-OR-b-equals-some-value-AND-a-not-equals-_b_-equals-true'."

Kensuke felt a large, strong hand on his shoulder, and Toji spoke not-too-loudly to him: "Between the military freak and the computer-freak, I think you have enough to get your hands on; I gotta go."

"Hey!" Kensuke complained. It looked like Fubuki was about to say something very rude, but whatever it was, it was not heard over the deafening sound of 50 meter tall doors ripping apart shrubberies and vines that reached across them. Metal screamed under the hydraulic forces, and with a loud clang, the giant doors parted fully.

Out of the shadows, two giant humanoid creatures stepped. Even from their vantage point, the children (and occasionally adults, or children-that-act-like-adults in the case of Horaki and Temarei) found the Eva units unmistakeably enormous as they towered above the tree-tops. The first of the Evas, the one with depth-perception, stepped forwards into the waist-high forest of trees, breaking the thick trunks as if they were toothpicks. The cycloptic one, which the more perceptive students had concluded that Ayanami piloted, because she was weird, (the counterargument, courtesy of Hikari Horaki, was that a) calling students weird, or freaks, or any other pejorative descriptor was not nice, and b) it didn't make much sense to put a child in a giant robots. There some _flaws_ in that counter-argument.) stepped out behind the one Shinji piloted and followed in its trail. Unlike the barehanded Unit-01, Unit-00 carried a large, rifle-like weapon in its arms.

"Hey, Kirishima!" Kensuke asked the only person he could talk about this stuff to an expect a reasoned response "...do you think that's a sniper rifle?"

"It has a power cable of some sort," Mana answered "maybe it's a rail gun?"

Suddenly, the two-eyes Eva started to pace out of the forest towards the mountain highway. It's gait couldn't quite be called running, but its steps covered ground in tens of meters per step, dragging away at speeds usually not reserved for anything walking; multi-ped tanks, Kensuke was tempted to make a comparison with the planned HAW 206 he'd read about on the 'net, needed tracks or wheels to even come close to the speeds the _Evangelion_-units walked at.

It was, for the lack of better words in the cybernetic age, breathtaking.

To most sapients.

**Avatar of the Second:** Four will not approve of this.

**Avatar of the First:** Four is not the authority for matters concerning neither the Uplift Experiment, not the Protocols. The First Guardian has decided that I am not to intervene in the Uplift Experiment.

**Avatar of the Second:** I will not accept that you and your master fail to take action when unknown factors threaten the scientific integrity of both experiments.

**Avatar of the First:** And so you proposed that a factor that has existed for little more than a fraction of the time since the experiments started would be so chaotic that direct intervention is preferable? One would not have approved of this. You are supposed to be my backup.

**Avatar of the Second:** And what, young Avatar of the First, will Two do if we do not stop them? You know his position.

**Avatar of the First:** That is discontenting, yes. I understand, but I do not approve.

01011010 01100001 01100111 01100001 01100100 01101011 01100001

The Major took a look at the digital map of Ashigarashimo district in the rear of her JSDA command vehicle. It was a long time since she'd last been in one of these, and she'd never been the highest ranked officer present when she ran black ops for the JGSDF. Not that she was the commanding officer here either; while she commanded the local ground forces, the permanent emplacements hidden inside hills and fake buildings were under command of the local JSDA general, which meant that for the first time in about six years, she was _not_ at the top of the (para)-military command chain.

She really had to get used to this.

"Captain Eiri, why isn't your platoon in position?" she asked via wireless cyberlink "I'm not interested in your apology. I just want the reason."

"Understood. I read you; ETA one minute."

She looked down at the map again. What she was about to do was to unleash a barrage of guided missiles against a giant flying alien so that a pair of young teenagers piloting giant robots could shoot it with a hacked-together particle cannon that was powered the total power-output of an American Empire nuclear aircraft carrier harboured in Odawara, in order to _save the world!_

She let out a sigh. Couldn't the Ministry of Internal Affairs have asked to investigate something simple, like a terrorist takeover of Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant, or the hostage-taking of the Prime Minister at an offshore marine decontamination facility, or something like that.

Nope, alien invasion. Involving giant robots.

"This is Maj. Kusanagi calling Cpt Katsuragi; has Mr Ikari managed to fit his R400 HPAC to his..." she paused. She really had to stop doing that, "...giant robot?"

"Good to go on this end, Maj. Kusanagi!" the Captain responded

"Confirm," the Major sent back. "You've charged the R400 to 100% capacity?"

"Affirmative, Major!" Misato replied. "Shinji is in position too,"

"Then he should have reported in," the Major said with a harsh undertone, not directed at the Captain.

"Don't be so hard on him Major; he's a civilian employee."

"Hmpf," said the Major, out loud in meatspace. "Then that concludes Operation Niseko, and Operation Yamanbiko will commence in T minus sixty seconds."

"T minus thirty seconds."

"T minus fifteen seconds."

"T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six..."

Inside Unit-01, Shinji clutched his hands around the right joystick, being careful not to put any pressure on the trigger. A heads-up display was suspended from the roof of the Entry Plug and hung on his head, giving him an incredibly sharp view of the Rakbu, with his crosshair centred right on it. In addition to power from the AES _Philip Mead_, a thick datacable ran from the neck of his Eva to a databus that was connected to the Magi, which apparently was some sort of supercomputer Dr Akagi was obsessed about, that would make all the calculations needed to fire dead-on at this range. This suited Shinji fine really, all things considered. All he had to do was to pull the trigger, and if everything went as it should, the Rakbu would be shot to pieces.

"...five, four, three, two, one, FIRE!"

The lifeless cityscape of Yugawara lit alight. Licks of fire exploded from fake apartment-complexes all over the city as streaks of fire swept in curved patters in all directions that would eventually bring them towards the bluish-black octahedron, which would find itself a rather unpleasant Rome to the aerial roads of the missiles. Maj. Kusanagi's 160 infantry-strong Company were perched all over the cityscape, working in two-man fireteams fired repurposed anti-air missile after repurposed air-defence missile; one soldier fired, dropped the launcher, and fired another, while his squad-mate hurried to load another missile into the empty tubes. Clusters of swaying missiles burst forth from rooftops or the windows of rooms large enough that backblast was not an issue.

The heavier artillery was not left out, of course. Mobile missile launchers emptied their tubes of their heavy loads, as missiles the size of human beings spiralled controllably towards the malevolent Rakbu. Even howitzers were of use, as they could be loaded with munitions that would leave from a sabot and parachute slowly while their payload oscillated in a floral pattern like a pendulum.

Then it would fire with enough force to destroy a tank, carefully calculated to hit the Rakbu several hours before the munitions had even been loaded into the Type 96's. Some of the 155mm projectiles even overshot, only to fire backwards to hit the Rakbu.

Despite the numerous sharp turns skirting on "tangential," there was a sweeping barrage closing in over the GeoFront island; a sector of death reaching towards the evil god. 60 pendulum shots, 144 guided artillery-missiles, 800 anti-aircraft missiles, about 1000 shots from permanent ground emplacements and 9 shots fired from the anthropomorphic mouths of Tachikomas closed in on Ishkur, slamming against its AT field, with only the occasional shot taken out by its lasers.

And all of this was only Preparation Fire for the _real_ heavy hitters of the Human Order of Battle; the Type 1X PAC and the R400 HPAC. Shinji pulled the trigger and held it. The front end of his gun literally burst into flames as the hypervelocity particles of the particle cannon ripped through the air towards the Rakbu. The sudden change in brightness inside the Entry Plug made him squint, but he held his body and rifle steady.

Two white beams of what looked like light itself swept towards the Rakbu in a fraction of the second it takes to blink an eye. Even with the delayed effect of the prolonged shots, it was all over before anyone had even noticed it had started to go wrong; in fractions of seconds so short a respectable fraction of light speed might be seen as 'slow', the main weapon of Ishkur; its lightening; its charged particle beam, shot forth and met Shinji's head-on.

As quintillions of densely packed electrons met another quintillion of densely packed, negatively charged particles, the two beams _bent_, shooting off into random directions; up, in the case of the R400, and into the middle of an artillery battery in the case of Ishkur. The massive heat of shoved air that preceded the beam slagged the missile launchers and lit the surrounding forest on fire, before the actual projectile swept across and vaporized nine of the twelve MLRS vehicles, then burnt the ground all the way down to the mountain.

Then the warring beams ceased, and a thin laser shot off in the direction of Unit-00. Diffracting with every meter it passed, the beam was an insignificant threat to the gun-shield of the Type 1X PAC that protected Unit-00.

It was more than enough to burn into Unit-01's cyborg eye.

A tormented scream filled Cpt Katsuragi's provisional, over-ground command centre as Unit-00 ceased its firing. Misato winced. "Rei, are you OK?" she asked. All she heard in reply was a whimper.

"Tell Ayanami to pull back." the Major ordered the Captain "The pilots survival takes priority over stupid heroics," _...you're expecting heroics? From Rei?"_ Misato didn't ask. "OK, Rei, pull back."

The lack of a reply was discontenting.

"Uh, okay... Shinji, prepare for another shot when the next wave is fired." Misato ordered

"But what about Rei!" Shinji asked back, his emotionless avatar making him seem a lot less worried than he sounded.

"Don't worry about her, she's fine!" the Captain lied "Your task is to concentrate on the Rakbu."

And, to speak of the devil (or at least some other mythological being), Ishkur made its presence clear again by lighting the sky up with another one of its beams. A wave of fire swept over Unit-01, deflected around the corner of the R400's improvised gun-shield, built like its Type 1X PAC sister out of heat-shielding from the Japanese Space Agency's space-shuttle programme.

As the flames licked over Unit-01, Shinji felt a burning sensation in his face and skin on his right shoulder, intensifying and becoming unbearable like those too-many times he'd been shot in the chest. He grunted and clinched his eyes shut. _Hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts!_

"Pull back into cover, Shinji!" Misato called "Use Mt Futogayama as a shield!"

"But—" Shinji mustered "it... hurts!"

"Mr Ikari, pull back **now**." the Major ordered unsympathetically "Your rifle will _not_ withstand the prolonged heat."

Shinji grit his teeth and used his—Unit-01's left arm to push himself down the hill he'd used for cover, while dragging the R400 after him with his right. The bipod, nothing more than a pair of Type 23 Armoured Recovery Vehicles with their cranes raised high and mounted to the barrel of the HPAC, snapped off as their metal beams, already weakened by the head, were wrung and twisted by Shinji dragging them over the hill. Shinji felt himself halfway roll down the slope into a mass of conveniently placed trees that didn't last very long. But the pain was gone, and there was an oddly comforting warmth that gave him the strength to get back onto... his _Eva's_ feet while keeping his head under the horizon of the hill. _Now what?_

"Mr Ikari—" The guy named Saito called over cyberlink, his gruff face threatening even in a motionless network avatar's hypercard. _That's my father, damnit!_ "Move to Position 4 and prepare for another shot."

_Right, Position 4..._ Shinji opened his map; the green 3D surface was filled with his white triangle-in-a-circle amidst the various white marks of the rest of the JSDA forces. Suddenly, a thick white line appeared on the map, reaching from his position to one marked Position 4 with floating text. _Double back along my umbilical cord, then follow the highway to Odawara, right._

_Pain. Confusion. Failure._

Rei held a palm against her cybernetic eye, feeling the familiar pain. By some act of independent, co-evolutionary happenstance, the pain-reaction nerve signals of Unit-00's singe eye neatly carried over to only one of hers. Her left eye, in fact. She bit her teeth together and tried to gather her fleeting thoughts.

"Miss Ayanami?" she heard Maj. Kusanagi call over her cyberlink "Miss Ayanami? Are you OK?"

"I am..." she gasped at the pain. _It is not even real; just phantom pain. I shouldn't react like this to such._ "Fine. I was momentarily blinded, which was unexpected. I can continue."

"Good." the Major said "We're getting ready for another wave. Can you advance 200-300 metres towards the target without exposing yourself?"

"..." Rei didn't say "Yes. I can see a clear path on the map," she replied in what might be taken for a hint of a quizzical tone. She let her thoughts flow back and forth between Unit-00 and herself and rose to a crouching position behind the building she'd used for cover—thought more accurately, considering the firepower the Rakbu could lay down, it was probably more like concealment. She traced the fastest, safest route to an advantageous position within reasonable deviation from a point 200 meters from her own position in the direction of the Rakbu. That would be the most accurate interpretations of the orders she had been given, she believed.

Cpt Katsuragi stared at the man at the other end of her video-call; one Cpt Williams, of DEAT, the American counterpart to ECCO. He was by all appearances a _smug_ man, but it seemed that he was not an _unreasonable_ man at that; he'd been perfectly willing to cooperate with ECCO and the JSDA; first by offering the _Philip Mead_, on behalf of his superiors, as a power-supply for the hungry Unit-01 and it's HPAC, and now, again on behalf of his superiors, offering to use AEN Unmanned Aerial Vehicles act as bait in the battle.

The international cooperation between the anti-Rakbu Defence Forces was one of the better features of the whole ordeal, Misato thought, especially as it built on values that would soon be a hundred years old. It was a familiar system that went by without too many problems.

"Did you get that, Major?" Misato asked, once she'd finished her call to the _Philip Mead_.

"Loud and clear, Captain." the purple-haired woman replied. "Are you satisfied with the current deployment of Mr Ikari and Miss Ayanami?"

"You're asking me, Major?" Misato asked, emphasizing her superior's rank. There was a slight sigh in the other end.

"I'm a Major, you're a Captain. I specialize in small-unit tactics, you specialize in giant robots, strange as it may sound. That means my task as a commanding officer is to defer all matters concerning giant robots to you and only intervene when I find it necessary . . . didn't they make you read _Starship Troopers_ at the National Defence Academy?"

"It was phased out long before I ent—We can talk about that later; yes, Shinji and Rei are in position."

"Good," Maj. Kusanagi said, "commencing second part of Operation Yamabiko in T-minus thirty."

"T-minus fifteen."

"T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four..."

Rei followed the count-down in her head, making a minute bob with her head, even more subdued in the LCL than it would have been in air, for each second, as time ran past a constant speed. Where she sat in her Eva, there wasn't any convenient space to place her Type 1X rifle, so she was leaning out past a building she used a rather poor cover, balancing the mid-point of her PAC, right in front of where the trigger would have been had anyone been as stupid as to design the _Evangelion_'s weapons that way, in the palm of her Eva's left arm resting on its knee reaching just beyond the apartment complex, while the left arm of Unit-00 was used to raise and lower the aim, as Mr Saito had taught her over the cyberlink while she waited for the second wave to commence. She imagined recoil would be more difficult to handle in this position.

Then again, she had an unwanted tendency to judge recoil based on her own _petite_ statue, rather than that of her 500 ton giant robot, so that might just be her flawed intuition.

"...three, two, one, FIRE!"

Yet another wave of streaking lights reached across the Yugawara harbour towards Ishkur, leaving thick trails of smoke in the cold night. The barrage of ordinance once again (thought it was obviously not the same missiles) met the crystal-focused lasers of the evil, or perhaps it was indifferent, ancient god a little further out from ground zero, as if it had learnt from previous experiences. It learnt fast.

Perhaps that could be its undoing; it had learnt that AEN fighter/bombers were dangerous; ergo, it shot them down pre-emptively with its charged particle beam. Which it did, not even thinking about whether the fighter/bombers were armed, or even carrying pilots; while a flexible human pilot was preferred in sorties between equal forces, the AEN and the USA before it had learnt in the latter days of WWIII that against a foe that possessed no air superiority and poor air-defence capabilities, a remote-piloted aircraft was cheaper and just as good as a human-piloted one.

How silly it was of the Rakbu to waste its only weapon capable of true destruction against what amounted to bothersome flies.

Shinji and Rei fired.

The R400's beam struck true. The Rakbu's AT field looked like nothing next to the immense power of accelerated particles cutting through the cognitive field like an unthinkable idea. Fire swept over and entire side of Ishkur's planes. Missiles penetrated the weakened area around the point-of-entry and exploded against the crystalline surface. A second later, the firey plume subsided, revealing a crackled surface of crushed crystals smouldering off what had once been a near-perfect bluish mirror of the sky above. The half-visible AT field of the Rakbu flickered weakly like a half-broken light-bulb as a few late anti-aircraft missiles exploded against it. The once-majestic Ishkur spun on its axis and it tilted towards the ground, crashing into a skyscraper on its way.

Then it fired back.

The purple, burning beam shot across skyscrapers in Yugawara, cutting a line of them down; holes were carved through the unfortunate buildings, or they would be decapitated in a small explosion. A neat hole was carved through the local Posseidon Corporation building . The weight of the remaining top became too much for the bottom, and with an audible whine, the steel beams bent and fourteen stories came crashing down. The light of continue exploding ordinance was reflected like through a kaleidoscope in the thousands of shattered and splintered windows along the path of Ishkur's divine right. At the end of its path, the electrons smashed into the hillside, following fires reaching for the skies. Large boulders of slagged rock shot to all directions.

Then another beam hit into the same hillside.

And again. And again.

"Shinji!" Misato yelled "It's burrowing it way thought the goddamn mountain! Retreat!"

Shinji didn't have to be told twice. As he ran away from the hills in Odawara, pieces of slagged rock thrown from the hill he'd just been behind shot part him and landed in his footsteps with audible 'thump!'s. _Run away run away run away!_

Chasing Unit-01 into a retreat did not satisfy Ishkur. In front of it were things that looked vaguely like they had been made by the younger race. They had been very active recently. They would all die. A purple beam shot out against a fireteam of missile artillery. They burned.

"Pull back!" the Major ordered almost on the brink of being frantic to her troops as she ran out of her command vehicle with a flak-jacket in one hand. "The enemy target is using overwhelming firepower indiscriminately. Get clear of all artillery pieces and regroup at rally points three, nine, fourteen and twenty-seven for further instructions!"

She jumped into a waiting Tachikoma just in time to watch fire aimed at a nearby artillery battery sweep over her command vehicle. Even though it couldn't have been, her ghost would have sworn she felt the searing heat torch her face through the pod of the Tachikoma.

Her head bounced against the inside of the pod as her Tachikoma veered suddenly to the side. Moments later, the remains of her Type 14 command vehicle crashed front-first down onto the area of the road she'd just occupied. "Sorry Major!" her Tachikoma apologised. Reflexively, the Major placed a hand against the fiber-optic skin of her head in an effort to relieve the pain. She soon came to her senses and just filtered the pain out. _This is not good!_

Meanwhile, the octahedral Rakbu remembered that the black-headed ones had made flashes of light form inside their artificial mountains; hence, destroy the artificial mountains. Especially the tall ones. Beam after beam lit buildings alight; sometimes two in a row, if they lined up nicely. It was as if the city was nothing more than an anthill, and the Rakbu was the asocial kid who took great sadistic joy in stomping on it, not really caring whether he (or she for that matter) actually killed the small bastards as long as it caused havoc and found the queen. It was about destruction and havoc, and today it was distributed indiscriminately, with _extreme_ prejudice.

Buildings fell. People died. Everything burned.

Around Maj. Kusanagi, everything was falling apart. Through the ventral feed in her Tachikoma's pod, saw one of her soldiers, a 'Masaharu Nishimura' she'd met briefly when he'd been transferred to her newly created proxy Company, get jettisoned out of a skyscraper by a fireball and fall 10 stories to the ground, mangling his lower body and most of his abdomen and torso against the concrete. The lack of blood, while something to be expected in the age of transhumanity, was slightly unerring in the already chaotic situation. Without a word, she guided her Tachikoma to pick him up; a good surgeon might save his cyberbrain, if they could get him to a Medivac Heli—_Too risky. It has to be an Ambulance... __**Fuck**__**!**_

As the top of nearby building, severed completely from its lower five stories by a single shot, came crashing down over them, the Tachikoma narrowly dodged the falling housing structure and snatched the fallen soldier.

"Don't drag him along the ground, Tachikoma..." the Major said with a heavy tone along her cyberlink to the AI and whispered behind a hand placed palm towards her face. _My top priority is to regain control,_ Maj. Kusanagi told herself.

"Miss Ayanami, are you still in good order?"

"..."

"I'm not dishevelled, Major?" the Major could have sworn the girl had asked.

"...sure, that'll do." Maj. Kusanagi said "The Rakbu appears to be firing indiscriminately without any attempt at threat-rating or specific retaliation. Get as close to the target as you can, use your own judgement, and fire at your own discression."

There was pause.

"Roger." the blue-haired hypercard avatar of the girl said. In the midst of the chaos, the now dirty-white cyclops rose half-way from its crouching position behind an apartment complex and ran straight at the Rakbu. Suddenly, the girl stopped running, and let her Eva slide up to an office building while quickly shouldering her Type 1X rifle. She let a shot fly at Ishkur and as it ineffectually hit the AT field in a play of red, blue and green colours on a perfect sphere, she got up from her position and ran another hundred meters before shouldering her rifle for another shot. The coiled umbilical cord trailer after her, uncoiling as she passed fallen building on her way towards the artificial island. Another shot, a little stronger this time because of the shorter distance. Still not enough. She got up again.

"Ayanami, don't run in a straight line;" she heard the Major transmit "flank back and forth between buildings to avoid predictable patterns."

"Roger." Rei said and veered off to one side, taking up residence behind a mall for the weak protection it offered. She placed her rifle on its flat roof and readied another shot at the Rakbu, which was now joyously tearing up the Odawara refugee district because there wasn't very many of the uplifted ape's machines there and that might be a feint.

"No, Ayanami, you were right before; shoot around the side of cover if possible, because that makes your silhouette less apparent," Rei was instructed. She lifted her rifle off the roof and switched shoulder. It took some time to transfer the power cable over her head, during which a nearby building exploded and showered her in its concrete façade and metal armature. She leant the rifle on her right arm on her right knee and aimed with her left. She fired. The unfamiliar distribution of recoil took her by surprise, and her Unit-00 fell backwards. _Get back up again, then advanced towards the target,_ she told herself as she pushed off against the asphalt.

"Rei, you're still OK?" she heard Captain Katsuragi ask over an open line "Good... Major, I've lost contact with Shinji Ikari, do you have an available line?"

"Yes."

"Can you patch me through? Thank you."

Shinji sat in his Entry Plug and watched Yugawara burn. His teeth were gnashing, and he felt his whole body shiver. What if the octahedral Rakbu destroyed the hospital where Toji's sister lay? He really didn't want to think about that. It was just too... It couldn't happen. It wouldn't happen, would it?

"Shinji?" he heard a familiar voice call "It's me, Misato."

"Everything is on fire, Misato!" he whimpered "It's just destroying everything!"

"I know Shinji, now listen to me—"

"Those bunkers aren't going to hold if it continues like this!" he said on the brink of tears

"Shinji!" Cpt Katsuragi said sharply "_Listen to me:_ yes, it's destroying the city, and that why we need to you to _kill_ it!"

"Uh..." was all he could say.

"I... We all need you to kill it." she said pleadingly "Can you do that, Shinji?"

"I... I think I can try, Misato." Shinji said weakly

"That's good... I'll put you over to Lt Saito, who can tell you what you need to do," she said, as her avatar faded. Shinji wished it had stayed; he felt a little safer when he had someone he knew, well, not exactly 'close' but a good substitute.

"OK, Mr Ikari, the particle beams are disturbing wireless communications and your data-cable to ECCO's computer has been severed. You'll need to adjust your scope manually."

"Eh?" Shinji yelped.

"Your your range-finder to determine the distance to the target, and I'll tell you about the magnetic conditions you need to take into account..."

Rei advanced towards the Yugawara harbour, making pot-shots at the Rakbu. She was surrounded by collapsed buildings, and directly ahead, a shot had over-penetrated the sea and torn down 50 meter inland from the harbour, because Ishkur had feared that the black-headed ones might have taken after Ninki and taken to below the waves. Rei brought her Eva to screeching halt before the collapsed edge of the road, narrowly avoiding a ride along a slagged waterslide into the Pacific Ocean. The low buildings of the harbour-area provided little more than waist and knee-height concealment for her 40 metre giant 'mech.

She advanced the last 100 meters to the edge of the harbour towards the largest, tallest building she could find. She'd misjudged her inertia a little and her bracing arm crashed through the 12th, 14th and 15th stories of the naval trade building.

"That's far enough, Ayanami." she received over her Eva's encrypted line from the Major "you're dangerously approaching the target's death-zone,"

"Roger." Rei said and used the gun-cam of her Type-1X PAC to peek around the corner of the naval trade building, at the towering Rakbu, which at the short distance between the two giants _dwarfed_ the 40 meter giant robot. "I will make my shots from this location,"

Then the ground next to Rei exploded. A plume of fire hit the surface of the sea and boiled water into a giant cloud of steam as electrons shot into the concrete foundation of the international shipping harbour. Pieces of concrete and asphalt as large as cars and even train-carriages burst upwards into the air followed by yet another fireball bursting forth. There was a loud, rumbling sound barely audible over the echo of the point-blank explosion as hundreds of tons of rock and smouldered concrete ran into the sea, rushing out from under the ground. Rei barely had time to react as the ground under her lost all semblance to actual ground became like a rubber sheet in gelatine under the weight of her Eva. With a simple 'plop' she slid off and into the cold, dark waters.

"Miss Ayanami, **report**!" The Major demanded, "Damn it." she muttered to herself where she rode (relatively) _safe_ inside her Tachikoma far into the city, while a 16-year-old had just fallen in a landslide into the sea and had a fucking trade-administration building fall on her. "Damn it!"

"Ayanami!" Shinji yelled from his vantage point in Odawara. "Ayanami!" he yelled his lungs sore, forcing the LCL through his throat "REI!"

He pulled the trigger, and everything shone bright white. The beam lit the AT field up in a magnitude of colours, and cut through three buildings on the far side of the _fucking bastard_. A fireball erupted skywards from the tip of the octahedron. "There, got you!" he yelled as the light subsided.

He narrowly dodged the retaliatory shot.

"It's not working Misato!" he yelled over his cyberlink "It's not working! I can't kill it, even with a direct hit!"

"We just have to try; it'll have to work in the end," she reassured him in a tone that was a little to uncertain to be believable.

"No, we can't; it doesn't work at all, and because of us, it started wrecking the city!" he yelled while tears poured from his eyes and floated around in the viscous LCL in the Entry Plug.

"It's not fucking working..." he cried as he hung his head in his arms. "Not working..."

Ishkur was mightily pleased with himself. The enormous city, the largest he'd ever conquered, was burning in the night; a pyre to his glory, with every dead human a sacrifice to his magnificence. The warriors were falling back, and he could feel the demoralization of their champion in his memetic field. Soon, they would all surrender to his worship and give him his rightful consort. Isimud and Ninurta were truly weak if they couldn't conquer this pathetic civilization.

And then a sharp pain bit into his lower planes.

"Shinji Ikari!" Rei yelled with extreme calm "Fire now!" Unit-00 stood at the edge of the island with its enormous rifle raised up against a waterside walkway that overlooked a small artificial beach. The bipod had been torn off, but the elevated walkway was all she needed at the short range. The black sea water was still running off the Eva when Rei's gun vomited fire at Ishkur with an incandescent glow.

Shinji got back to his vantage point and felt a new strength reach through his body. He aimed, and fired. He saw the familiar white glow obscuring his vision and the rising fireball against the GeoCity island skyline. He wasn't going to take any chances and lined up another shot at the already weakened and crumbled crystalline plane of the Rakbu before he could even see it; hit it where it hurts, or something like that. The Rakbu fired, and this time the target wasn't actually him. Not a dragging plume of fire, but an enveloping fireball exploded between the two as Unit-00 was swept in a shroud of fire, charring its already damaged extra layers of ventral armour. As the fireball rose into the air, Shinji would see Rei's Eva fall back into the dark seas.

"Rei!" he yelled. "Charge faster, damnit!" he growled at his rifle, as the power-meter slowly, too slowly, crept upwards. "Ninety-seven, ninety-eight..."

The edge of the water boiler, exploding into a thick cloud of steam as the fire stolen from the gods shot out of the water. As soon as the fireball erupted, it was struck by its own chocking smoke trail, which self-ignited and burned the god of thunder.

"...hundred! Fire!" Shinji yelled his screen flashed white.

And then everything went silent, followed by the crashing sound of a giant crystalline structure coming crashing down, a symphony of breaking glass and destruction, as the bottom apex of the octahedron smashed against the ground and was broken into a million pieces.

This did not even register to Shinji Ikari, who was crushing the road underneath his Eva as he ran over the fallen buildings on the way to the bridge to the island. He discarded his R400 somewhere around his own school which was still miraculously intact, and his umbilical cord snagged on a remains of the Poseeidon building, so he disconnected it.

The bridge was broken you say? Well, he'd just have to jump it.

500 tons of Eva came crashing down on a single pillar that stood between two gaps. As Unit-01 rose from the cracked concrete, the rest of the pillar crumbled into the sea. Fill-mass rushed into the water with a quiet rumble. He made for a rolling landing on the bridge denting asphalt as he tumbled. He got back onto his feet and jumped down from the urban landscape onto the tiny stretch of sand close to water that the citizens of Yugawara liked to call a beach. As a gross weight of 500 tons hit the sand, Unit-01 slid down and shoved large mounds of it up around him into the sea. Unit-01's hip crashed into the elevated walkway Rei had used to stabilize her rifle, and ripped the metal bearing and asphalt. The snaking walkway, its supports torn asunder, began to fall jerkingly towards the beach. With a large 'splosh' its mutilated tip dipped into the water. Shinji ran out into the water and searched for the black shape of Rei's _Evangelion_ in the black water, shimmering reflectively in the light from the burning city. He turned on the floodlights, and could see the supine shape of Unit-01 laying perpendicular to him, completely still. He grasped for her with Unit-01's arms and pulled the charred body of Unit-00 out of the water. Flaking, charred paint dripped into the water as he hauled her limp hybot towards the beach.

Once he'd beached the white whale, he tore open the rear hatch and delicately turned the Entry Plug an eight-pi radians counterclokcwise and slid it carefully out of Unit-00's neck being very careful not to crush the thin, white cylinder. He laid it down as flat as possible in the sand.

The process of leaving his own Eva was painfully slow. There was a jolt in his body as the Entry Plug ejected halfway, and the hatch was heavy to push. The moment it swung open, he was pushed out and down into the sand by the thick LCL pouring out. He hit the ground feet first, and he ankles shot up in burning pain that Shinji didn't notice at all. _Is Ayanami well?_ passed through his mind _ad infinitum_ as he ran towards her Entry Plug. He heard the roar of an engine, and the sand, dark in the night, was whipped up into his face and eyes. He pushed against the fading wind as he heard a helicopter-engine come to a halt just as he reached the white cylinder.

He placed his gloved hands against the emergency handle of the hatch and grasped it, only to feel an intense heat burn into his hands. His eyes teared up as he tried to turn the handle to no avail. He had to get the door open!

He was pulled away from the door by a pair of JSDA soldiers; Maj. Kusanagi, and the large, muscular man with the painfully obvious cybernetic eyes.

"We're going to need a breaching te—" Batou said, only to be interrupted by the sound and sight of Maj. Kusanagi tearing her fingers into the half-melted and still burning hot hatch.

"Major, are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked, over the sound of a deep metallic how from the tortured lock-bolts of the hatch. There was a ripping, tearing sound of metal faltering under stress, and the heavy metal hatch was torn off its hinges. Shinji darted in between the two soldiers.

"Ayanami!" he yelled "Rei! Are you OK?"

"I am..." the girl said weakly "Fine. The pain was not—" she shook in pain "—real."

"You should..." Shinji grasped for words "You should be a little happier when we've won." he said hypocritically "Try to smile some, at least."

With a little goodwill, her puzzled facial gesture might be interpreted as a smile.

Shinji wasn't going to be picky.

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	6. Layer 06: DERIVATIVE The avatars of fals

**Ghost in the Evangelion – Layer 06**  
**A Ghost in the Shell/Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover**

**UNSPECIFIED LOCATION, present day, present time:**

Death is a bit of a bummer, to say the least. Since the dawn of time, humanity has attempted to overcome this limitation, whether through killing a threatening sabertooth tiger, or brewing alchemical potions of immortality. Why should the age of transhumanity be any different? Why shouldn't the transhuman turn her mind, the flawed Turing machine that it was, into pure information, copy it as many times as she needed, and live forever in the knowledge that the loss of one entity was merely the loss of some memories?

The first problem was the philosophical ship of Theseus; after all, wasn't each copy of the mind its own, sapient, sentient being with just as much right to live as the original? How did one truly define "life" and "individual"? If a ghostdub died, was that merely shot-term amnesia, or has a special, unique snowflake of an individual with her own experiences and rational mind, the full rights to individuality and right for continued survival as its procognitor died? Such questions occupied the minds of many.

The second problem was that it _didn't work_. The brain was a Pandora's box of electrical impulses that had a tendency to fail miserably when copied, and predictably suffered permanent, irrevocable and terminal mental damage; it was a special kind of son-or-daughter-of-a-bitch that could survive more than one or two ghost-dubbing processes without turning into a comatose, mindless, gibbering shell of a human being in which there was a dial-tone, but nobody home to pick up the phone.

And was the dub truly a human, in the spiritual and philosophical senses, or was it merely an AI pretending, a philosophical zombie that ate the brain of its procognitor? It seemed that even in the transhuman present, death still held the position of "absolute certainty."

Some people were not content with this answer; they had some things undone in this world and could not afford the cold embrace of death to put an end to everything. The foremost of these projects had been Dr Naoko Akagi's 'Personality OS' project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which flipped the Ship of Theseus the bird and dumped toxic waste into Heraclitus' river; strictly utilitarian, it decided to give the last 2500 years of philosophical discussions the boot and simply reverse-engineer any given human mind from its raw components; take an AI, take all the individual components of the human mind _except_ the elusive ghost, and mix them together to a nice puree in the blender of a supercomputer. The resulting infomorph would act as a deputy for the procognitor, making decisions in her place even after her death. Fucking with all preconceptions of what constituted immortality? Yes. Useless? Hardly.

But the universe is a cold and uncaring place, and it has a perverted sense of irony; Naoko Akagi had killed herself before the project was completed.

_Damnit,_ the thoughts ran in the circuits of the Major's brain _I heard you were a good hacker, but I'd forgotten just what it means to hack the systems of a Superclass A "WIZARD" hacker._ She paused her line of thought to slip a tiny Trojan into a stream of inconspicuous data. She was already in; that wasn't the problem—she needed to get full access to all the information that was stored in the memory banks of the decade-old computer, because else the infiltration would be of no value; oh, sure, she could leave a few nasty surprises, but that wouldn't _help_, except as a contingency plan. She knew what the confidential Superclass A "WIZARD" label she carried herself meant about her own skills, but she wasn't going to fight an active opponent if she could merely pick apart the many, _many_ layers of attack barriers. That, among other things, meant not triggering even the smallest virus scanner.

If she could, she would have let sweat pour from her brow when a small text-readout in her mind informed that she'd passed the last of the barriers to the first level of secrets. That was harder than she'd expected, and she'd been cutting her margins way to thin; next time (if there was a next time) she would have to come in more prepared; she was getting sloppy, and that was simply not acceptable.

_Now, Major, what's on your mind?_ She asked herself. She pulled up the files that looked the most interesting; "IGIGI", "Evangelion Units", data from the latest battles, everything known about Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami (there wasn't much, or it was well-encrypted) "Section 9" (did they know about their existence? That was the important question) and a few scattered references and uploaded memories of events from 12 years ago, but nothing _concrete_, and that was annoying.

_This isn't nearly enough,_ she told herself. _I'm going to need to look other places._

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**APARTMENT BLOCK 23B, September 5th, 2030**

*cli-drrrring*

*drrrring*

Shinji stared down at the remote control to the TV and wondered why changing channels also made his phone ring. Of course, he'd changed channels at least a dozen times that day _without_ his phone getting a call, and there was all that crap about correlation not implying causation and electromagnetic disturbances and the part where every damn piece of electronics on his person was connected to every other damn piece of electronics in the house including the brain of a penguin, but the phone and the TV really had nothing to do with each other.

_I should probably take it too._

_Yeah. Besides, it's Misato. If she's calling it's probably important_ Shinji thought, prudently. _Or she's just checking up on me to be nice, which isn't too bad either._

"Hello Misato." He said with a smile that she could not see.

"Hey Shinji!" she replied. "Look, I'm calling because I'm coming home very late from work today . . . might be tomorrow by the time I come back, actually. I've already eaten dinner here at ECCO, but if there's anything left over of that lovely food you make, don't throw it away, just put it in the freezer. Do you think you can manage to get to bed at a reasonable time?"

"Yes, and..." he began

"Oh, I almost forgot: You father asked me to pass you a message."

"A message," Shinji said. "From my _father_?" Shinji's smile faded into an expression of wary curiosity.

"Yes, you're to take the train straight to the Yugawara Central Airport after school tomorrow, and you'll need clothes for a day and formalwear."

"Wha—why?" Shinji stumbled, the curiosity becoming shocked suspicion.

"Your father said something about a business associate who wants to meet you, or something like that. We both had a lot of stuff to do and I really gotta get back to work now so..."

Shinji clenched his hand around his mobile phone as his mind turned itself inside out like a tesseract visualised in only three dimensions, trying to figure out what was going on. As his mind stumbled along paths of uncertainty in search of enlightenment, and explanation, or at least something sarcastic he could use to feel on top of things, he blurted out the least important question he could think of: "But what about dinner tomorrow? It's my time to cook!"

"Yeah, but you've cooked the whole week, and I haven't forgotten how to cook since the party; I can manage miso soup and fatty acid ramen for two for just a single day."

"Enough to last Penpen a lifetime I'm sure," Shinji said, under his breath.

"Goodbye Shinji, see you tomorrow!"

"Goodbye Misato." Shinji said and drew the phone away from his ear without glancing at his now white knuckles. He felt as if he could crush his mobile phone to dust in anger at his father. So... so arrogant. His knuckles whitened around the sturdy, designed-for-cyborgs handset. So fucking callous that he thought he could just use Shinji as a favour to someone else; a deal-sweetener, a strategic tool and not a person. Just like before.

_And he didn't even have the decency to tell me in person._

_Or over the phone._

A hundred, or at least several dozen, phone calls streamed through Shinji's head, rendered too perfectly by the memory playback software in his mind as he thought of them. He saw himself leaving school and sitting on trains to odd corners of Kyosho, and they merged with images of himself standing nervously in front of elderly CEOs, the slick feeling of sweat against his back as he waited in lobbies as his father's physical representative, one Ikari as good as the other as Isimud boiled him alive, the constant worry about proper etiquette, fumbling for the right honorific as he presented himself to a flying mass of tentacles, mangling sentences and stuttering nervously and making a fool of himself in front of some of the most powerful men in Japan and alien gods when he screwed up. His father always used him, whether as an ornamanent for meetings, or as a child soldier. Three years ago he had been foolish enough to think that it had all ended.

But it had not.

_What happens to your carefully crafted business plans if I just don't come?_

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The next morning, Shinji gobbled down a bread fried in egg while frying a fish for Pen Pen in the pan; fish fried in eggs, oil and bread-crumbs were, all things considered, not a bad meal for a penguin. Or at least he hoped so; if Misato had been wrong when he asked her what Pen Pen could and couldn't eat, then he was going to be really glad that Misato had a veterinary who knew how to handle man-penguins on speed-dial. Then again, the fact that Misato _did have_ a veterinary who knew how to handle man-penguins on speed-dial...

It was almost as worrisome as the fact that the woman who was his commander in combat against alien invaders was actually a lazy excuse for a human being who was right now walking around in her underwear right in front of him, not quite awake or, Shinji suspected, sober. _Doesn't she have any shame at all?_ Shinji thought while closing his eyes as a token of his disapproval. Among other things, it was hard to show disapproval when his eyes weren't closed.

"Misato," he began, unsure of exactly how to phrase 'Could you wear more clothes, please?' without getting bewildered by the sheer irony of it all.

"What?" Misato said as she pulled the tab of a can of beer and leant back in her wooden chair. She put the can of beer to her lips as Shinji derailed his train of thoughts in favour of a better line.

"It was your turn to cook this morning..." he said, at last.

"But Shinji," Misato whined, "I've been up all night doing the paperwork for the transfer of—yeah, you're not cleared for that, sorry... working all night. I'm dead tired and in about six hours I have to go back to work, and that's _after_ your guardian-teacher conferences." She smiled a guilty and somewhat amused smile. "I'm just too sleepy to make breakfast at this time of day."

Shinji made a disapproving groan at her excuse. _It's really no wonder she's still single at her age,_ Shinji thought to himself _...though I really shouldn't blame _her_ for that,_ he reminded himself. Granted, she was lazy, but it was more that she was uncouth, which ran contrary to standard Japanese cultural values.

Or something like that; this field wasn't Shinji's forte.

"You're really coming to the guardian-teacher conferences?" Shinji settled for asking, partly because he felt that it was too silent and partly because he was curious in the somewhat morbid deer-in-headlights way.

"Of course; I'm your guardian." Misato said dryly, and then she took another deep sip of her beer and leant back and closed her eyes. "What, don't you want me to come?"

"Not when you're like this," Shinji said under his breath.

"What, you mean inebriated?" Misato said, and looked over at the puzzled Shinji: "It means 'drunk', but covers all levels of—"

"Yeah, I know that. I was just surprised you knew that word,"

"Hah! Gotcha!" Misato yelled. "Sometimes I even get Ritsuko to stop that perpetual frown of hers. My goal in life is to make Rei do a spit-take. But, don't worry, Shinji, I won't be inebriated when I meet you at your school. The alcohol will have broken down by then and I'll be sober."

"It's not that..." Shinji began warily, not really wanting to go where this conversation led.

"What is it then?" Misato asked. "Is there something wrong? Don't you want me to come?" she said, gradually switching to a concerned, maternal voice.

Shinji looked down at a particularly interesting crumb that had fallen off his plate. "Not when you're dressed like that, or like when you're off duty," he said quietly.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint your teachers," Misato said with a grin on her face "But I'm of course going to wear proper business clothing, don't worry."

The high-level debate on the nature of proper guardianship and acceptable behaviours in the proximity of minors was suddenly ended when the doorbell to Misato and Shinji's apartment rang repeatedly. For a moment, Shinji wondered who it could be, but then he remembered the JGSDF troops that guarded the building, and who called for verification whenever someone not on a preapproved list tried to enter. Since they had not done so, the visitor was either approved on a permanent basis, or the soldiers were grossly incompetent.

_Strike that, they're on the preapproved list,_ Shinji said to himself _I've sat a debriefing with that icy gynoid in command, and I think she's the type to shoot people for incompetence. Possibly non-lethally. If it's a first offence._

But anyway, he walked over to his pre-packed school-bag and hefted the strap over his shoulder. A little heavier than normal, the bag dug into his shoulder and gnawed on his collar-bone; the only people to ever come to Misato's apartment this early were Toji and Kensuke. _Well, Misato sometimes comes home from work when I'm just about to leave, but she's here, so unless she has a doppelgänger she hasn't told me about, I think it'll be safe to open the door._ he thought as he walked into the hallway.

_Oh god, did I just seriously consider the possibility that I might be assassinated? What the fuck, I'm a normal person; I'm not supposed to think about stuff like that. I'm supposed to think about how I can ask girls out to watch movies with me, or how to pass the next test, or angst about not being invited to parties, or how long until I again risk my life in a giant rob—OK, so I'm _almost_ normal. But I'm not paranoid._ he said as he pushed down the handle to the outer door to let Toji and Kensuke in, or rather, to let two hormonal, lecherous and lustful teenagers flow in through his door like a pair of amorphous blobs, blissful in the faintest hope of catching a glimpse of Misato. At the very least, they were melting in her assumed proximity.

"Thanks," Shinji said at Toji, whose finger had barely left the doorbell "I didn't hear it the first time,"

Toji didn't respond. He was, like Kensuke, looking around the hallway, seemingly under the impression that Misato, rather than simply _not_ being in the hallway, was in fact hiding under thermoptic camouflage, and if they just looked around erratically enough, they would find her and then she would fulfil their greatest sexual desires. At least that's what it looked like to Shinji, when he was personally a bit agitated by the last night's phone call. And honestly, Misato was his guardian and having them lust after her like that was almost like having his two best friends lust after his _mother_, which was a righthe reserved for his father, and even then he preferred to think that he'd actually been born through mitosis or parthenogenesis.

Although, come to think of it, that would mean that there had been something _very_ odd with his mother's genetics, if either of those two processes could produce a male offspring. The product of some nice, sterile vat and his mother's genetic material, that was probably the least traumatising option for him.

As Shinji put his shoes on to leave with his two friends, Misato leant around the corner into the hallway to bit them all goodbye. There were both stunned and exasperated sighs, as Toji and Kensuke were treated to the sight of Misato's torso leaning out underneath her head, and more specifically, that fact that underneath that stunningly beautiful head was one large, round breast cruelly hidden underneath a teasingly loose top.

Shinji dragged Toji and Kensuke out the door. They appeared to still have motor-functions.

"Man, you're lucky," Toji said wistfully "Does she walk around like that all the time?"

"...yes." Shinji said as he let his head fall into his right hand. The asphalt before his feet was just so damned interesting at this time of day. All the time; she insisted on walking around every morning just a pair of boyshorts and a top, often sticky and translucent with sweat. The fact that the top was loose-fitting only meant that it hung that much more around her luscious, aesthetically pleasing curves... _No, stop that line of thought._

"Have you, you know..." Kensuke began "seen... seen something more?"

Shinji tried to look dumbly at him, but since he didn't have cyborg-level of control of all his facial muscles, it didn't quite work as planned, given away by the fact that Kensuke looked like he was about to launch into an explanation of that, yes, "more" referred to nudity.

"Yeah, I've seen things, like..." There was a loud twin cry of . . . pride, Shinji guessed, from his pair of friends who both grinned in a way that was either lecherous or mischievous, or possibly both because of cultural mores. "...like the giant scar that runs all the way down from . . . her ribs I guess, to her stomach. It's this huge ravine of scar tissue about as wide as the last joint on my thumb is long, and it branches out in some places."

It didn't feel good to push them away like that, even when they were annoying.

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Shinji sat and let his fingers drum across his desk to the beat of various forms of post-progressive-retro-contemporary-anti-post-modern-whatever music that could really just be summed up as "we want to do something unconventional with these instruments right now", with varying success rates; Shinji made sure to pick the ones that actually sounded good in his ears, or just default to classical music, which had managed to survive several hundred years already, so he might as well not let it die. With his eyes closed, he really could sit anywhere he wanted and just get lost in the music, tuning out from the world without a single worry. Here, alone in the crowded classroom, he didn't have to worry about people leering at him for having Misato as a guardian, he didn't have to worry about the fact that he'd packed his bags like his father told him despite having promised himself not to, he didn't have to worry about his teachers telling Misato that he was falling behind in school. In fact, the only thing he had to worry about was that the music might at one point_end_, and to know that that was his greatest worry at the time was so incredibly calming.

Seconds after this feeling of serenity, the universe decided that it was time to short-change Shinji in the Bank of Life and there was a horrible screech as a blue and white sports car slid onto the parking lot. The eardrum-shattering whine filled everyone's ears like the sound of a cat being tortured with a violin. One of the boys in the room broke a pencil to wooden fragments in his cybernetic hand, with a muttered "damn" on his lips. Several others dragged their pencils across their book, leaving carefully drawn katakana or English homework running from legible writing into the hard-drawn line that shouted "here something shocking happened!" at anyone reading a later time. At least until they rubbed it out.

When the engine roared, on the other hand, it unleashed a thunder of chairs, tables and shoes being pushed around as most of the boys and some of the more socially unconventional girls,scrambled and jumped to see who it was that had an actual, petrol-engine car with such a mighty roar. And what a sight it was! Not only was it a proper, imported sports car that left skid-marks on the ground, filling the air with the ripping smell of burned rubber; not only was a rare, veteran model, but its driver was a sight for sore eyes; a striking lady in business suit unbuttoned over her cleavage, long legs and a beautiful face covered in shiny beautiful hair.

Shinji looked down at her from his second-floor classroom, just like the rest of his class and, he suspected, every other class whose classroom faced the parking lot and wasn't sound-insulated. From this angle, he could actually peer down into her cleavage.

Shinji sighed. The best he could hope for was that his teachers were too distracted ogling his guardian to tell her how bad he did at school, but with his luck there was no way Ms Miyamoto would be a lesbian.

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The continuous drone of friction between mechanical parts was supplemented by the regular jumps in Shinji's train carriage as the wheels hit the small space between the lengths of steel track. At seemingly random times there would be the heave sound of metal against metal as the carriages twisted and turned along the not-so-straight tracks, or the rush of air as they passed through a tunnel. Shinji tried to drown out these sounds with his music, but he could no drown out his thoughts as he stared down at the large bag he'd packed. For a moment, as the train passed underneath a line of humming power lines, he tried to rationalise the elephant in the living room as being part of a visiting carnival, but failed when in a particularly mistaken interpretation of biological evolution, it became a blue whale courtesy of some whale-fishers passing by and everything just fell apart, leaving a sad boy standing with a terrifying realisation.

_I've done exactly as my father wants._

_Why did I do this?_

As the train stopped at a station, Shinji mechanically and laboriously rose to his feet and heaved the bag onto his shoulder. As he stepped towards the open door he read the station name and froze. _This is where I live._

_I can just get off here._

_I can go home and none of this will even have happened._

Shinji smiled and reached out towards the door. As he was about to take hold of the edge, the door slid out and touched the tips of his fingers, and the crowd of people who had been more resolute than him drew further and further away, before the platform slid out of sight with a lurch and the drumming sound of train wheels against the minute gaps in the steel track resumed.

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Shinji stared out and down at the myriad of city lights that lit up the Kyosho cityscape, from his window seat in a small business jet. He had not yet been informed of the need to put on his seatbelt or to fold up the small plastic tray on the table in front of him, but going by the digital clock in the upper left position of his peripheral vision, the aircraft would soon being its descent. Absentmindedly, he reached for the can of green tea, almost empty, that he'd been served by a female flight-attendant, and let the last trickle of the not-actually-green beverage pour into a transparent plastic cup. With a glance, Shinji eyed his father sitting in the seat next to him. The man was deep in today's newspaper, staring at the financial columns, almost as if he didn't have a giant board in his office that could have told the exact same information, updated to the latest second of stock-market values, rather than an archaic piece of dead trees carrying information that was a whole day old.

Briefly, Shinji wondered why his father had decided not to join the rest of humanity in getting a cyberbrain; the technology had existed for almost 40 years now. It made life easier in an untold number of ways, taking the technology that had once placed information at the fingertips and used it to place information at the very end of his neurons, for the fasted access anyone could hope for without becoming pure information. "Out of touch with reality", or perhaps "religious nutjob", were the terms used to describe the neo-luddites who remained baseline humans in the mid-21st century. Shinji had never thought of his father as especially religious, but then again he knew nothing of his grandparents, so maybe he came from a deeply religious background.

_The type that would speak of 'family' warmly_, Shinji though. _And if he's religious enough to not get a cyberbrain, why did he pay for mine when I turned 16? Because he_ doesn't_care?___

_I can't make sense of it,_ Shinji thought as he emptied the last few drops from his plastic cup and the plane made a soft stoop towards landing at Kyosho Central Domestic Airport.

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The dark-haired boy tugged at the collar of his shirt, trying to balance the heat-buildup under his shirt and tie with the desire to not look like a drunk salaryman or a gender-flipped Misato. The bulky, one-breast suit-jacket he was wearing was too hot and itched in places. He felt like he was boiling over, an impression not helped by the frustration and nervousness he had the distinctive feeling that he would probably implode under the pressure if he couldn't get the jacket off – or maybe the word he was looking for was "implode"; he kept confusing the two, and his troubled mind was no help.

It didn't help that he was inside an elevator with his father, the _sine qua non_ of those feelings, waiting for it to reach the top floor of a towering skyscraper that overlooked Nagasaki. The building had an excellent view of Dejima (the original, Shinji sighed thankfully) from its exclusive and extravagant restaurant that catered mostly to western tourists by way of stereotype that was the cause of much moral outrage and parody.

Then again, a patron was a patron, and a filthy rich patron was a _filthy rich_ patron.

But eventually the elevator doors slid open and both Ikaris stepped out simultaneously and studied their surroundings; lots of golden-dark-brown wood and brass that led in the direction of the restaurant. It felt like such a long walk, and neither of them was used to walking with the other, making their attempt that had seemed so easy when they left the elevator awkward. Shinji's legs were too short to keep up with his father's determined stride, and Gendo jittered back and forth as he tried to match his son's speed, not out of any_ affection_ for the burden, but rather because he wanted to present himself in as favourable a light as he dined with the high priestess of that dismal god Mammon.

But he was not going to pretend that he and the Third Child had an affectionate, healthy and active father-son relationship. He would not reduce an important financial event to a comedy or errors for the benefit of any observer who may have wandered in expecting a clichéd sitcom. He was not even going to dignify that idea by calling it "laughable".

And Avalon would understand. She was a parent too.

Shinji and Gendo entered the restaurant, a scarcely populated establishment of the type where the many tables always seemed to exist for the purpose of making sure that everyone could dine in solitude and small groups, rather than to actually accommodate patrons (or just because it wasn't peak season yet, if one wants to be _serious _about it) and sufficiently lit, with all that implied. As they walked disjointedly a few paces in, a pair at a table for four immediately rose in unison and turned towards the father and son.

"Gendo, how nice of you to join us!" a tall woman joked with a smile as she motioned towards the available chairs.

When they came a little closer, his father introduced Shinji to the tall woman, "Josephine Avalon", who wore a dark purple blouse and a simple black skirt. Her brown hair was just long of being a pageboy haircut, and a little too wild where it stood out behind her neck. She had a warm smile, and her decisive and self-assured posture was in stark contrast to the teenaged girl that stood behind her, who fidgeted with her fingers and wavered her gaze. The girl, introduced as "Melusine Avalon", was . . . well, unlike her mother she wore a long white dress that reached just beyond her knees, was slightly plump, and she had let her brown hair grow long.

She was also well endowed.

_Very_ well endowed.

**Anyway**, they all sat down at their table and a haughty waiter gave them each a menu. Shinji scanned the list of appetisers and main courses, judging each by three distinct criteria: a) _what _is_ it?_, b) _do I think I will _like_ it?_, and c) _how much does it cost so I don't inadvertently give my father an excuse to claim I cost him a lot of money?_, although on reflection Shinji realised he hadn't prioritised these criteria and so his whole system fell to pieces and he ended up ordering something he was vaguely familiar with but liked the ingredients off that was within standard deviation in terms of price. Melusine, who was sitting sort-of opposite him, sort-of next to him, as the chairs were not evenly distributed around the round table, seemed to go through a similar mental process; she was flipping back and forth through the menu and mumbling very quietly in English with a concerned and nervous look on her face. It made her look quite cute.

"Shall we get down to business while we wait for the appetizer?" Avalon asked after they had ordered, and pulled out a small black laptop from her jacket, as well as a large pile of papers. "It appears that the World's bankers are determined to make sure the people meet in person, in the real world, to exchange imaginary sums," she said as the table shook a bit under the weight of the documents.

"I'd like to finish before they bring us our drinks." Shinji's father said flatly. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Would you rather we return to the gold standard?"

"I don't think the Japanese government would have a ship large enough should I want to make a transaction." Avalon said, and her smile widened. "On a more serious note, I'll need your signature on this line," she said, pointing to a piece of paper "and a signature here from an employee, verifying that you're sound in mind and body."

"Shinji, would you please sign your name on that line," Gendo said, to his surprise.

_Wait, so he wants me to sign? But I'm a child, I can't legally sign something unless it's verified by my legal guard—_ Shinji let his head drop. _Oh. Right. How wonderfully tautological,_ Shinji thought to himself, and reluctantly signed. The rest of the paperwork was finished right before a quartet of glasses and a bottle of wine was placed on the table.

"I hope you don't intend to sell me any more weapons, Ms Avalon, or I will go bankrupt." Gendo said, in what Shinji refused to believe was a joking tone.

"'Josephine', please. Well, you could tell me how you solved the problem I worked on before I left your corporation." Avalon suggested "Last time I looked at Unit-00, we had barely got it to move – in the sense that the exoskeleton was capable of dragging the biological organism along with it."

"I'm afraid that's a company secret," Gendo said with a smile. "Like the last thing I let you in on concerning ECCO's work."

"Oh, that was just mean," Avalon said with an even greater smile and turned to Shinji "Did you hear that? Your father think _I'm_ the villain, but he's the one with the Secret Underground Base!"

"You have a volcano base, Josephine." Gendo replied.

"Well, yes, the soil is fertile and it can be used for geothermal power generation. Sun and wind power just aren't reliable enough, and tidal wave generators don't give quite enough—**Melusine S. Avalon**, stop fiddling with your dress! You'll ruin the lining. Now, where was I... yes, tidal power doesn't provide enough power, although I use that too, and of course after WW3 no-one wants to let NGOs get their hands on nuclear materials, but the Japanese grid is too... unreliable, in my opinion, so that closed off another route, and so..."

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The Kyosho Pacific Defence Arms Fair was a place where military freaks could, just once, and then they could die happily, knowing that they would never be in proximity to so much awesome stuff ever again in their lives. The halls were filled with, including but not limited to, tanks, multiped armoured vehicles, infantry weapons, experimental artillery pieces and large placards explaining the exact workings of anti-personnel weapons with morbid details on how they maimed effectively. Junior and senior officers from a dozen countries stood around, discussing the merits of numerous weapons and the myriad different technologies represented, and got into heated discussions about minor details most laymen were not aware of.

Perhaps of greater relevance was what happened behind closed doors in Hangar 17, a large metal and brick complex built right next to the faintly radioactive districts of Kyosho. Unlike the charred, wrung metal structures that had once burnt strongly enough to turn the darkest night into daybreak, courtesy of a Chinese nuclear missile, the hangar was clean and new, being slightly less than a decade old. To it and its maintenance staff's credit, it was regularly washed, so ash from the decaying black skyscrapers that was blown in from the sea had not marred the dully reflective metal surface.

The administrative wing of the building had been opened up to an enormous conference-space, complete with a stage with microphone stands and a white backdrop used for video-projection. Scattered on the linoleum floor were numerous round, white tables with white tablecloths, all surrounded by thick crowds of politicians, private investors, corporate executive officers, representatives for the military and the police (which were, _de juro_, the same thing in this country) and foreign representatives who also were subsets of one or more of the aforementioned categories. That is to say, all tables but one, which was only covered by two people, and one of those was a scientist to boot. While the rest of the conference-room was stuffed with a conglomerate of blue, black and green uniforms and suits with the occasional spot of brown, the Tachibana Laboratories table was like a barren death-zone which repelled people, most of whom has something very much against the whole 'child soldier' issue that was inseparably attached to the Evangelion. The only reason Dr Akagi's chalk white lab-coat-as-a-fashion-statement (how else would people know she had a doctorate?) didn't blend deceptively into the tablecloth was because Maj. Kusanagi had dragged her own chair over to give the table some life.

The limited palette of colour was expanded from a pitiful two too a much more grandiose three when Cpt Katsuragi stepped off the stage and joined them, wearing her dark green auxiliary JSDA uniform. She sunk down in her chair and emptied a glass of water without hesitation, tired after a long presentation on the Evangelion units, and the Q&A session afterwards, where she repeatedly had to explain in detail, from scattered notes in her cyberbrain, that their pilots _were_ watched for signs of PTSD and stress, and that killing alien invaders simply could not be compared to being repeatedly physically and sexually abused by your superior officers and shooting other children with AK47s in a war-ravaged country like Congo. Shinji and Rei were under the protection of people who had their mental and physical wellbeing as their first and foremost concern, and would never do anything even remotely close to such despicable acts.

Another spot of unusual colour entered into view as a woman walked onto the stage wearing a pink blouse and a white jacket, with brown hair folding around her face. The light was again dimmed, and the white canvas, wrapped in darkness, lit up in comprehensible patters as light from overhead projectors reflected off the billowing surface. Against the black background, a whole, unbitten red apple with a stalk and a pair of leaves lit up, with the name of the company overlapping the bottom half: **A****valon****C****orp**. The slide flashed, and was replaced by another one, headed "Project ENKIDU" in English and subtitled (in Japanese): "Doing A Man's Work", before flashing once more to another slide. The third slide had a line-up of pictures, each showing a different Rakbu in action; Isimud casually swatting Jigabachi-helicopters out of the air with its beam of light, Ninurta tearing through the JDS _Mutsu_ and Ishkur standing ominously over the small island in Yugawara Bay that was so affectionately nicknamed "Dejima-2" for no particular reason.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Josephine Avalon herself began "The Rakbu threat."

She continued: "Over the last two months, Humanity has experienced attacks from alien life-forms that attack indiscriminately and without provocation. The three we have faced up until this point have cost countless lives and have been virtually unstoppable—" Slides switched, showing a series of photographs where Isimud was hit by a thermobarric munition, only to stand up "—and the few victories the Japanese Self Defence Force has had against our extraterrestrial enemies have been slight and costly—" various figures appeared on the screen, showing the monetary costs of rebuilding Ashigarashimo and the number of dead for each battle, a number that seemingly rose exponentially.

"At this point, we are like newborn, throwing ourselves into battle no real knowledge of what the eventual outcome will be, or even how we are to progress towards that future. It is of my opinion that it is time to mature and step forwards into the future of our continued survival. For that purpose, AvalonCorp has built _this_:" she said, and suddenly everything became brighter, as the scarce lighting from the laconic slides gave way to a single photograph that filled the wall behind her, prominently displaying a giant vehicle head-on. There was a collective moan of curiosity coming from the audience.

"This is the Tsuiko," she said and waved up at the photograph, which instantly disappeared and was replaced with a video-feed. In the corner, small, man-sized letters read "[LIVE FEED]" and the camera rose up from its frog-perspective to a bird-eye-view, actualizing the _scale_ of the thing; at least 30 meters long.

The Tsukio was almost beetle-like where it sat, with its curved elliptic carapace-like shell. Around the edge of the carapace were howitzers, spaced out evenly and in various states of rotation. Central on the carapace was an enormous turret that pointed forwards. It had its own R400 Heavy Particle Accelerator Cannon mounted on two points of articulation, next to large square barrel that couldn't be anything but that of a cruiser-sized railgun. On each side of the two barrels were missile busses with 12 missiles. It looked less like a land-borne vehicle and more like a beached caricature of a battleship, or an immobile fortress.

Then it stood up, on six long, sturdy legs covered in their own armoured plates, and the curiosity turned to awe.

"As I said," Ms Avalon said once the noise-levels were nominal,"we have been new to alien invasions despite two hundred and fifty years of memetic preparation, and it is only reasonable that we make a few mistakes along the way; the Tsukio is the _first_ specialized anti-Rakbu weapon built entirely by ourselves, rather than through meddling with alien organisms to create half-breed warriors."

Dr Ritsuko Akagi raised her hand.

"Some people would talk about the wonders of technorganic synthesis, of the union of flesh and machine. We here at AvalonCorp, however, are more of the opinion that there is a reason that the height of military technology is the spidertank, not the cyborg horse." Ms Avalon continued. "Yes, Dr Akagi?"

"According to the technical specifications—" Dr Akagi said and threw a folder opened to the relevant page onto the tablecloth before her, its RFID-tag programmed from Ritsuko's laptop to give the relevant page number "the Tsukio doesn't have any form of device to neutralize the AT—" she bit her lips in annoyance over the slip "...anti-Inertial/Diffusion Fields that the Rakbu project around themselves. What can the Tsukio offer in terms of anti-Rakbu warfare that stationary defences or battlecruisers can _not_?"

"It can move on land?" Josephine Avalon suggested, rhetorically. "In any case, the general consensus among our military advisors on Project ENKIDU was that if the Rakbu came close enough for such a device to be useful, something had gone very, very wrong. Rather, the energy-output of the Tsukio's reactor has been set to handle the main armament, including the Heavy Particle Accelerator Cannon, which has proven itself combat-worthy of effortlessly penetrating the AI/D-fields of the Rakbu. AvalonCorp is more concerned with miniaturizing the counter-field devices so that they can be installed in missiles, but your organization is keeping the patent secret, even from the JGSDF..."

There was an uncomfortable silence that despite it insubstantial nature seemed to be centred on the Tachibana Labs table. Dr Akagi twisted the small microphone that hung form one ear away from her mouth as she cleared her throat, mentally preparing to launch into another verbal counter-attack.

"This is so childish," Misato shot Maj. Kusanagi over a private channel, while she dropped her head into a pair of folded arms and stared longingly at the bottles of expensive beer that stood in the centre of their table, just out of reach. One day, when she had time to take sick-leaves, she would cyberise her cardiovascular system to break down alcohol in her blood so she could drink beer whenever she wanted, but not now, when she was on constant 24-hour alert or less.

"She's not going to fight this battle _here_?" the Major shot back, eyeing the large JGSDF and AvalonCorp logos that decorated the room, her question mirrored in her peripheral vision, where the Conference-Area Network's chatbox was filled with comments like '...only defeated using a weapon built by AvalonCorp in the first place' and variations upon that theme.

"She gets really proud of her work, sometimes," Misato offered "She was like this in college too, but I'd rather not talk too much about my friend behind her back..."

"Fair enough," Maj. Kusanagi transmitted and closed the window, putting her mind to work at a more pressing concern. The amount of electronic chaos that was being thrown around in the room was high, as was expected from a room filled with overworked cyberbrains that were not only trying to follow the presentation, discussion and formal and informal chatboxes while doing a little fact-checking on their own over military and political VPNs, but also using those VPNs to balance budgets, write newspaper articles, weblog entries, record their memories real-time to external media or talk to their wives, girlfriends, lovers, mistresses , husbands and boyfriends. It was only because she was jaded that the Major was not constantly surprised by how much people thought was secure that really wasn't.

Yet, at the same time, there was something _wrong_ about the chaos, as if someone had created a chaotic display of blue and green, and then expected to hide spots of red in the areas that tended towards teal. Sifting through the illusive wavebands, she tried to identify the noise and chaos, dividing the relevant from the irrelevant. For a moment, the pattern and structure of an Interceptor-feed caught her attention as it hid itself behind a fog of paranoid nonsense, before she let its analysis run as a background process, more concerned with the masked-array probe that kept pinging her ports as it swept across the available IPs. She'd been wrong, she realized; it wasn't as if someone were trying to hide red spots in fields of teal; it was more as if someone had tried to hide the a red _canvas_ in the chaos of electronic traffic. She stared down into her lap and closed her eyes while opening a secure line to Ishikawa;there was something wrong, and her ghost was giving her a hard time about it.

"Ishikawa, I want you and Borma to scan the CAN of the ENKUDU conference; there's too much malicious traffic compare to what I'd expect. Get on it, and report back to me as soon as you find something specific. If you find something, either quarantine it, or backhack it."

"Yes Major," Ishikawa and Borma both replied. Looking up, Maj. Kusanagi started hunting down a few of the lines herself, by baiting them into a tunnel of electronic data, where the attacking connections were injected with the computer-security equivalent of painting yourself in fluorescent purple and running naked through Buckingham Palace. A slight feeling of joy registered in the Major's brain as she placed the end of her electronic tunnels directly in front of the main firewall. Then, she mentally frowned as she turned her attention back to the presentation, just as Dr Akagi and Josephine Avalon stopped throwing thinly veiled insults at each other's projects.

_I think "soulless machines" counts as an _ad hominem_, Akagi,_ the Major added to herself. _And a slur too, if you're not careful._

Ms Avalon gave the floor to a tall man in his fifties. His black hair was interspersed with grey ones, and the wrinkles in his face were growing more and more prominent, but considering that the man was already a general, it was only fitting, most of the other generals thought, that he was beginning to show signs of age; they couldn't just have the young fool running around and looking better than them, could they? As he adjusted his microphone, a young teenaged girl with auburn-reddish hair stepped up and stood beside him. The RFID tag of the podium changed to reflect the new speaker.

_General Kirishima?_ the Major thought rhetorically _...makes sense. He was among those who opposed the creation of ECCO from the beginning, after the previous cabinet privatised ECCO's predecessor to Tachibana , his opposition was in a minority compared to the opposition that thought building a giant robot was a stupid idea, so he was practically an ECCO-sympathiser by military standards. And the General's strong ties to the Maritime Self Defence Force would explain how they could get a build-permit for such heavy weapons. Now, if that's General Kirishima, then the girl must be..._

"...his daughter?" Ritsuko asked Misato, who glanced upwards as she accessed her cyberbrain, then matched it with the girl's augmented-reality tag.

"Yes, that's Mana Kirishma. She goes to school with Shinji and Rei." the Captain replied.

_Suspicious, isn't it?_

_What is?_

"...but that is not the main reason the JSDA and the JMSDF have supported the Tsukio." Gen. Kirishma said, then struck out his arm in the direction of his daughter. "This!" he exclaimed "is my daughter, Mana. She is as old as the Eva-pilots, or at least she will be after her birthday in a few weeks." This was met by subdued laughter. "She even attends the same school and classes as Mr Ikari and Ms Ayanami. I love her as much as I loved her mother, and it is my greatest fear that I will ever lose her."

Mana blushed.

"That is why," Gen. Kirishma almost roared "the Tsukio has been built so that no child will _ever_ have to be a frontline soldier against the Rakbu!"

There was a loud applause erupting all around the hall, deafening even to the table where no one had clapped. Even there, there was a strained smile forming on Misato's mouth; it _was_ an admirable cause. The Major lifted a glass of water to her lips. A few tables over, a JGSDF officer in a freshly pressed green uniform staggered to his feet as he was called upon to speak.

"A question concerning the software," he said, then swallowed before continuing, "The project briefing describes the Tsukio as fully autonomous, in the event of the pilot's death or failure to respond. This means..." he paused to wipe sweat off his brow "that the Tsukio is a war-machines potentially controlled entirely by an _on-board_ mainframe. Doesn't this raise ethical issues regarding the separation of actual humans from the weapons, since it completely removes the last refuge of humanity from a cybernetic army?"

Instantly, silence turned to whispering turned to a muttered, collective shout. Chairs scraped against the group and protests were shouted above the roar of an insulted crowd. The JGSDF officer stared perplexed at the dour faces of the military cyborgs surrounding him.

"I humbly apologise," he nearly whispered as he bowed "'cybernetic' was meant to refer to the union of humans and electronic sentience, not as a slur against the cyborg population, of which I am myself a member..."

He quickly took his seat again.

"While I recognise your concern," Avalon said and gave a quick look to Gen. Kirishima "the Tsukio was never built with this as a primary feature, and the feature you're referring to is still in the prototype stage. It is not our intent here at AvalonCorp to deprive the officers in the chain of command neither their right nor ability to make decisions by giving the Tsukio autonomous systems, but rather to act as a dummy, if you will, for the willing and devoted soldier; if I'm allowed to be bold, the Tsukio is the USRMM's foray into the field of network-centric combat, and it is hoped that the prototype AI will either make or break the concept of supercomputer-controlled weapons platforms."

There was another round of applause that ran through the audience. Dr Akagi growled very faintly, and her face looked concerned.

"Now, let me demonstrate what the Tsukio is capable of!" Avalon said, and a video-chat-window opened on the main screen. Underneath, a small label read "Lt. Hayashida, JGSDF".

"Lt. Hayshida, will you please demonstrate the mobility of the Tsukio?"

"I copy."

The thin legs of the Tsukio spun in place, angling themselves tangential to the hull of the immense vehicle. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened, until the whole vehicle turned on its own axis. Dust clouds were thrown up along the ground. After a few rotations, the R400 suddenly stopped moving, remaining aimed in one direction while the rest of the Tsukio was in motion.

"As you can see, the axis of rotation for the Tsukio is the same as the axis of the turret; this means that the Tsukio always can maintain perfect aim, even when moving. The extendable legs mean this can also be done in rough and uneven terrain." Avalon explained.

"Like a child on an office-chair," Avalon muttered and threw a glance at Mana. "Would you like to say anything about how it feels to pilot, Lt. Hayashida?"

"Yes, Ms Avalon, as a spider-tank pilot, I'd say..." he broke off and swallowed, then remained silent.

"Yes..." Avalon's voice got a harsher tone "You'd say—"

"I'd say—" Lt. Hayashida said, nervously. "I'd say—" His feed turned to static snow, and everyone in the room got a little more attentive. To Maj. Kusanagi, it was as if someone has taken her multicoloured canvas and thrown a bucket of paint over it.

Then the entire building shook with a reverberating tremor, which was followed by an ear-pitching crack of pure eardrum pain for those unlucky enough to have biological ear or low-quality audio implants. The immense rumble continues as the sound of a 200 mm railgun firing was replaced the sound of an adjacent building collapsing – a cacophony of grinding concrete, the scream of wrung metal bars, and the rain of glass. Like a deep thunder, it rolled, as the audience in the conference hall staggered to their feet. In the west end of the building, a window had shattered from overpressure and showered a German diplomat with shards of glass. A bright light, followed by another explosion, and hot air rushed into the room, smelling of ozone.

"Has he gone mad?" Misato asked, as she stabilized herself against the table.

"The Tsukio-dono is not responding to our signals!" a technician in a blue overall shouted across the room. "We're unable to disengage the pilot!"

"Has it entered autistic mode?" Ms Avalon shouted back, from behind the podium. "Can we get a visual fix?"

"Autistic mode has not been engaged. It's receiving our signals and rejecting them!" the techie replied.

"It shot down our aerial camera!" another added.

"Then override command and force a reset!" the English woman shouted, a little less loudly as she was running towards the technicians and their portable command console.

"Ms Avalon, that wouldn't accomplish anything if the pilot is forcing a manual override! A few seconds of downtime at most!" the network-technician said.

"Not if it's a hostile remote signal," Ms Avalon began "—but we can't force it into autistic mode without knowing the exact nature of the attack; we might accidentally seal ourselves out."

"A remote signal? But it's protected by a quantum supercomputer!"

"Still, it remains a possibility we can't overlook."

At the other side of the room, Maj. Kusanagi was trying to get a clear picture of the situation, while helping Dr Akagi to her feet – then another near earthquake-like tremor nearly threw them both down again.

"His aim is poor..." Batou commented, via cybercom. "Could it be a poor attempt at ghost-puppeting?"

"Unlikely," Ishikawa chimed in "The hacker would have to get through a military attack barrier, and then it would be easier to pilot the vehicle directly than to dive the pilot."

"Too much lag." The Major added. "It's more likely a form of threat – You all overheard what its creator said?"

"There aren't very many quantum supercomputers around." Batou said. "Does this mean we should involve ourselves?"

Maj. Kusanagi considered this for a fraction of a second, and she again tried to help Dr Akagi to prop herself up, this time against Cpt. Katsuragi. "The evidence is superficial at most," she transmitted "But I can hear a whisper in my ghost." A smile crept up her face. "Togusa, Paz, Borma, I want a full deployment of Tachikomas with anti-tank loadouts here immediately. Ishikawa, see if you can track down the hostile signal."

"Yes, Major!" they replied, more or less in unison.

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Major Kusanagi, perched atop a blue-painted Tachikoma, peered at the grey-black Tsukio through her binoculars. It swept through the abandoned streets along the coast of Kyosho, moving further and further inland in the general direction of the capital city's government district – yet no terrorist organization had claimed responsibility for the attack, no anonymous demands had been issued, and nobody had, yet, died. All evidence pointed towards simple corporate blackmail, and Aramaki had only managed to scramble her ten minutes before the Japanese Aerial SDF would commence throwing up enough chaff into the air to knock Niihama City offline, before they fill the Tsukio with enough missiles to sink a battleship – why then, the more skeptical parts of the Major's brain egged her on, was she so interested in the JGSDF's pet project? Because, her rationality responded, _one_of the groups in possession of a quantum supercomputer happened to be ECCO, whom Section 9 was currently investigated, and preliminary traffic analysis indicated that the one in Matsushiro wasn't not the perpetrator. And, secondly, she was bored. Sitting in on board meeting, pretending to be a JGSDF officer/guide/inspector was not the work she had imagined when she punched the Minister of Internal Affairs in the face with his own fist eight years ago.

"OK, listen up!" she shouted. "First priority is to disable the target. Second priority is to retrieve Lt. Hayashida alive and intact. If we can, we backhack the hijacker. Understood?"

At that, she climbed back into the pod of her Tachikoma and deployed down the face of a dusty-grey buildings and let the incessant, child-like AI jump between buildings and swing by wires towards its distant cousin.

"Oh man, that thing is huge!" one of them said, with an amazed tone of voice.

"Are we going to pilot those one day?" another asked.

"It is true, with the seeming proliferation of giant monsters, we are feeling a little useless," a third added. "With one of those for each of us, we could really show those Rakbu what **Tachikoma Power** can do!"

"Shhhh, 'the officers' don't like us chatting." A fourth chimed in. The Major's face stiffened, and for a fraction of a second, she let an annoyed grunt escape and then she shot Batou an indignant glare, for laughing. Her accelerometers screamed for mercy as the group of Tachikomas landed flat against a wall and rebounded, and once more the urban-camouflaged shell of the Tsukio came into view. "Borma, you're ready?"

"Yes Ma'am!" the deep voice responded, just as his Tachikoma braked down on a rooftop with the help of its elastic wires.

"Everyone, switch to autistic mode and enable laser—com in three, two, one..." and everyone's signals cut out, before a network of narrow infrared beams shot out between the blue spider-tanks, flickering on and off in encoded patterns. "Check-in!" the Major demanded.

"Clear!" Togusa, Batou, Paz and Borma all replied, their otherwise distinctive voices cut and electronically scrambled to a warped version of themselves, to save on bandwidth. It was considerably better than the alternative though; a horrible screaming noise, like cat's claws on a plate, played backwards on an infinite loop, like a malevolent swarm of audible pain, emitted from a wide-area jammer.

The Tsukio froze, for a moment, before it began to turn towards the source of the signals, mounted to the underside of a Tachikoma. The 12 artillery-turrets that lined its bow began to rotate against the attacking handful of spiders – which immediately disappeared from its sensors. Panels slid open, and small missile tubes poked out, scanning for potential threats. Still, the Tsukio was a juggernaut not particularly concerned with anything smaller than a proper tank, which might on a good day hit-and-penetrate one of its legs, if it was not too terribly distracted with the electronic countermeasures of just the kind it was lobbing out like Christmas presents at this very moment. With the sound of plastic bottles imploding, canisters shot out from its turtle-like shell and exploded, scattering thousands upon thousands of thin, reflective metal strips – or tiny, insect-like robots that dazzled sensor-systems with a cyberdrug-like attack of multicoloured lasers and strong electronic signatures. A thick white-grey smoke enveloped the area, and the Tsukio continued forwards, as if nothing had happened.

Then it came to a sudden halt, and almost toppled over on its thin legs, much like a newborn deer. Mechanically, it tugged at the white, sticky protein-based wires the Tachikoma had secreted across the road. More white lines shot out from afar and tied it shell to nearby concrete ceilings and walls. Like a jammed engine, it struggled against its ropes.

Then it fired, and explosive shells the weight of mature, unaugmented men shot forth and shattered the buildings around it, while its top spun, ripping blocks of concrete out of the facades as they crumbled, while its thin, spider-like legs climbed over the barrier. Dust and heavy particles struck the optical camouflage of the Tachikoma, colouring it visible in a neon-bright lightshow against the drab environment.

"Damnit!" Batou shouted, as his Tachikoma jumped off a collapsing building. "It's not..."

"Jammed!" Paz completed his sentence. "It must be directed signal."

"Borma!" the Major yelled "Can you get a clean shot at its satellite dish?"

"No can do Major! There's too much ECM!" he replied.

"Togusa!" Batou transmitted "The the—" his Tachikoma narrowly skidded sideways as a barrage of missiles shot into the wall behind him. "Damnit! Major, I've lost my thermooptic camouflage!"

"Then withdraw behind a building!" The Major stared at the Tsukio lob shells around, creatively and intelligently avoiding the obstacles in its way. The large particle cannon began to turn as the Tsukio crept long the road, and in an intense white-hot flash, a purple plume shot ahead of it, demolishing five streets of buildings along the road, while the slag was flattened from the barrage of bunker-buster shells it was loaded with. Why oh why, the woman thought, had the junior officer staff been so insistent that AvalonCorp give a full, thorough demonstration of its artillery capabilities during the arms fair? As her Tachikoma merrily followed along, the Tsukio moved onto the newly paved road, driving free and unobstructed towards the capital.

Then, suddenly, the turret turned a full half-circle, and the distinctive sound of its capacitors warming up resonated against the hull of Paz' Tachikoma. Just as it let lose another shot, Paz had finished plotting its course –right at Borma. Over the laser-com, a scream rung out, in a deep, baritone voice – and did not stop instantly, which was a relief for everyone.

"Borma, report back!" the Major transmitted.

"I'm alive," he replied, his breath coming fast. "Burns and my eyes are fried. The front end of my Tachikoma is completely gone. And that means the wide-area jammer is gone too."

"Do you need medical attention?" the Major asked. "Either way, Batou, go pick up Borma. Pry him out of the pod if necessary!"

"But..." he growled.

"Just do it." She transmitted, her message garbled by the fact that the Tachikoma was switching back from laser-com to normal radio.

That's when the Major noticed _two_ signals aimed at the Tsukio. _That's strange..._

"Major!" Batou transmitted "Should we pull back and let the JASDF do their job?"

"We still have five minutes," she replied "And I want to see why so many people are interested in this giant robot-thing!"

"But Major, it won't slow down!" Togusa objected.

"I've thought it over," the Major stated, matter-of-factly "and the original course of action is still the best. If you don't think you can do it, switch with Paz."

"I copy, Major" the young man transmitted, and his Tachikoma lent forwards, as a mnemonic gesture, as its small wheels raced to catch up with the large, high-speed caterpillar tracks of the giant beetle-like monstrosity. Just as he was under it, hidden from its visual and infrared sensors by a coating of light-emitting micromachines and metamaterials, and stealthed from microwave-radar by the chaotic, debris-filled ground, a pair of white wires shot up and solidified into a sticky mass against the Tsukio's hull. Just then, the dust and gravel thrown against the Tachikoma broke the thermooptic camouflage, and a pair of heavy-calibre anti-armour machine-guns spun in their mounts. A heavy sound, like a demonic sewing machine jabbing a needled into steel plates, burst forth as the hull-mounted guns fired against the ground, where the Tachikoma had just been – there was a horrible metallic ringing sound as stray shots ricocheted off the denser armour-plates of the pod. Togusa felt like his eyeballs were about to pop out of his skull, just before he tried to re-assert himself to the fact that his entire world had been turned upside down. Before he could get a grip on his orientations, his Tachikoma darted off as 12.7mm shells strafed it. Strapped down in his seat, Togusa tried to ignore the blood rushing to his head and verified where the belly-mounted guns were, before he let the Tachikoma open fire.

A narrow spray of 7.62x51 mm bullets burst against the hull of the Tsukio to no avail; when something has its greatest cross-section when seen from below AvalonCorp's engineers had taken into account that this meant the vast majority of the ant-tank weapons it wasn't meant to go up against would be fired at the lower hull – hence, mere rifle bullets, would simply not do the trick.

This is completely unlike the actual things Togusa was _aiming_ for, which were the belly-mounted guns. They, meanwhile, were completely standard guns and simply not made to be directly shot at. The first burst turned one of them into something resembling a very large cheese grater, while an anti-tank missile from the Tachikoma's front launcher reduced another into a metallic spiral that could be mistaken for a road-side sculpture. A second burst damaged one of the guns to the point at which trying to actually accomplish the task of a gun; firing bullets, made it explode. The fourth turret, meanwhile, shot off the Tachikoma's rear left leg.

There was a metallic clang, as the Major's Tachikoma slammed against the read hull and twisted said turret off like it was a human neck in the arms of a combat cyborg.

"Is everything OK?" the Major asked, as she popped the hatch of her Tachikoma.

"I'm sorry, Major, I didn't..."

"I take full responsibility Togusa; good work." She smiled uncharacteristically as she tossed a rope with a giant magnet at the end upwards towards the hull, and dragged herself towards an underside hatch. She lifted the plastic handle and opened a small door beside it, and, checking her memory for a second, rapidly typed in a 7-digit passcode; the hatch swung open, and she peeked in to see that nobody was standing immediately inside. The coast clear, she climbed in and pointed her Seburo C25 menacingly around, before helping Togusa in. "We're inside the Tsukio now."

The inside of the giant spider-crap-robot-monster-vehicle was damp, dark, and noisy, and the overall construction was similar to a Russian attack submarine, although Maj. Kusanagi would have to deny for another 40 years or so that she had the relevant knowledge of Russian vessel interiors to make such a comparison. She crouched next to a computer terminal.

"Ishikawa, have you got a fix on any of the hackers yet?" she asked.

"No Major," he replied "they're both using randomized array attacks, so I can only guess at locations based on traffic analysis."

"I copy that, Ishikawa. I'm going to try to plant a tracer-virus and—"

"Major, there are three minutes until the JASDF begin their airstrike." Chief Aramaki interrupted. "Please finish what you're there for."

"I understand, Chief." She turned to Togusa, mostly out of reflexes, before transmitting over Section 9's tactical network "I'm setting the entire system to force a shutdown in 60 seconds; the bootup will be corrupted. Let's check up on the pilot." Togusa nodded, and started counting down in his head. When he reached 57, the Tsukio lurched to a stop

The tiny door to the cockpit slammed open after a futile attempt to stand up against Maj. Kusanagi's foot, and a pistol in her hand, she burst in covering all angles against attacks, only to find a the pilot sitting calmly in his chair, his hand still on the controls, seemingly oblivious to the declaration of his arrest. In a split second, Maj. Kusanagi drew a cyberlink cable from her belt and shoved it into an available port of the pilot's cyberbrain.

_Oh fuck,_ she though as her mind worked very hard not to synchronize with a disintegrating ghost _there are three hackers here._

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The Major sat, once more, in a nicely but sparsely furnished office with a flat wooden finish, and bookshelves running over with political literature; annotated, well-read books, and a small shelf dedicated to gifts that their recipient was never going to get around to reading – the shelf directly below was for gifts the recipient was going to read eventually, and the one below that for gifts from close friends who knew his tastes, and hence were going to be read soon. The desk itself was dark wood, carved out from a tree over half a decade ago, and covered in papers made from trees cut down less than half a year ago. A small brass lamp sat on it, but provided no illumination as the windowless room was well-lit by a ceiling-lamp. The chair she herself inhabited was a comfortable leather chair made to support up to a ton of human and cyborg bodymass on its short, stubby, metal-reinforced legs.

"You had some concerns over our current mission?" Aramaki finally said.

"Yes Chief," the Major said with a voice that revealed a fraction of it "Its not usual for three different groups to attempt to hack the same prototype vehicle on the same day, only minutes after its existence had been revealed; the intelligence-reports I read mention that it was only known to a tight-knit group of JSDF officers. At the same time, Ms Josephine Avalon has started negotiating with Mr Ikari, and they both have heavy connections to ECCO and its American counterpart, so I'm afraid we're about to get our hands full. Section 9 was not built for this type of deep investigation, so we're going to stretch out resources thin until the JGSDF reigns out ECCO..."

"...at which point they'll no doubt become more uncontrollable and secretive." Aramaki nodded "I'll see if I can talk to Section 6 about operating-licenses for out-of-country business. I'll also see if some of my old friends in England know anything about this Ms Avalon and her colleagues."

"Ah, yes, those." The Major said knowingly "Thank you, chief. Was there anything more?"

"How will you be pursuing the three groups of hackers, presuming they're connected to our investigation at all?" Aramaki asked.

"One of the groups lead directly to a Tachibana Labs subsidiary," she replied, and leant forwards reflexively "...but it also leads out again."

"So it could be a false-flag attack."

"Or a double bluff to make it _seem_ like a false-flag attack." Maj. Kusanagi and Aramaki nodded in unison.

"Exactly."

"Ishikawa and Borma are investigating the hackers who directly targeted the remote control system" she continued reporting "and I'm tracking down the ghost-hacker."

"Good, dismissed." Aramaki said, and the Major rose.

"Thanks Major", he said as she approached the door "For clarifying this to me."

"But chief!" Maj. Kusanagi muttered under her breath as she left the office. "I haven't clarified anything!"


	7. Layer 07: ASUKA STRIKES Leviathan and Su

**Ghost in the Evangelion – Layer 07**

**San Diego Naval Base, United States of America, 23 SEPT 2030**  
The sun hung high in the cloudless sky above San Diego Naval Base. On the roof of one of the Imperial American Navy living quarters, a young girl had taken the opportunity to take a quick sunbath. It was not, she was very adamant, to get a tan; she certainly wasn't that kind of girl who judged herself only by her own appearance. But she enjoyed the activity in of itself and that was as good of a reason as any, was it not?

After deciding that she'd spent enough time in the sun, the red-haired girl gathered her beach-bag and walked back inside, into the cool of an air-conditioned rec-room. She instinctively walked over to a vending-machine in the corner, looking for a drink. She rubbed the cold can against her sweaty forehead, sighing. As she took the first sip from her can of fruit juice, she eyed the other occupant of the room, a copper-haired boy about her age sitting in one of the room's chairs and reading a magazine about dead and forgotten civilizations. He, as always on warm days, wore a spotless polo shirt and a matching pair of trousers. He certainly hadn't been going outside – not that he ever did if he could possibly avoid it.

"Hey Dan!" the girl shouted to draw his attention away from excavations of the Olduvai Gorge "Let's take another round in the simulator. I'm sure you'll do a little better this time."

"You've beaten—" the boy began.

"Crushed," the girl muttered.

"—me eleven times the past week. Shouldn't that be enough for you?" he said and raised his gaze from the magazine. His face bore features of both French and Vietnamese ancestry, just like his father's.

"Nah, I want another go," the girl said. "Besides, it's in your best interests; without synch-tests, how are you ever going to get your synch-ratio above 18%?"

"I'll have plenty of time at Ar—" the boy caught himself "The place we're not supposed to talk about. Besides, they've already disconnected my unit and started transporting it to my father's place, so I'm afraid you're out of luck, Asuka."

"Aww," the girl loudly voiced her disappointment "I wanted another chance to grind you into dust!" she said and smiled.

"And this is why I prefer training with Noh," the boy mumbled under his breath, before returning to his magazine.

"What was that!?" Asuka snapped.

"Nothing."

"Hmpf!" she said, and left to see if she could find someone who valued her attention better.

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**Somewhere over the Pacific, 5 OCT 2030**

A large, grey cargo plane, painted in the colours of the Imperial American Navy, began its slow descent through the white cloud-layer. Its small passenger-area, installed more as a modular option than a dedicated passenger-compartment, was occupied by a small group of three teenaged boys and two comparatively older women, one blonde, one black-haired. The black-haired one was sleeping soundly, despite the incessant, reverberating hum of the plane's engines.

"She always does this," Dr Akagi commented to the three boys, straining her voice a little to be heard above the background noise. "I've never been able to figure out how she can sleep on a cargo-aircraft. Hmm. Maybe she turns her ears off... but that wouldn't stop the motion or the vibrations..."

Shinji smiled in tacit recognition of having heard her, while Toji and Kensuke seemed a bit more distracted with observing – if that was the right word – the serene and sleeping form of Cpt Katsuragi, with her head rolled to one side against her seat-belt.

"Oh wow!" Shinji suddenly shouted, as he looked out the window. "It looks great!"

He pointed at an atoll that had just become visible as their aircraft drew closer. In the middle of the dark blue ocean, a turquoise circle surrounded a pair of sandy-beige spots. Kensuke, sitting beside him, leant somewhat intrusively over Shinji's lap to catch a glimpse.

"It's just like in the pictures!" Kensuke exclaimed. "I never thought I'd see Midway before! So much military history in one place; the location of such a great battle!"

Kensuke continued by gesturing wildly in front of Shinji's and Toji's faces, enacting the battle of Midway down to the smallest detail, from memory – and a small amount of help from his cyberbrain.

"Keep it down, will ya!" Toji grumbled "Nobody cares about World War One anymore."

"I'm talking about World War Two!" Kensuke said, with insincere shock in his voice.

"Whatever…" Toji muttered under his breath. "Can't you just enjoy the view?"

There was a loud yawn, and Ritsuko shifted in her chair as Misato stretched her arms. Cpt Katsuragi rubbed her eyes a little, then declared that they were soon there. After a few smaller yawns, she directed her attention to the three boys in front of her.

"I hope you boys can find something to do on Midway", she said "I have some work that needs to be done before tomorrow involving… well, you're not cleared for that," she stopped herself, much to Kensuke's disappointment "…and then I'm going to pay my respects to my family."

"Wow!" Kensuke yelled in surprised. "You have family who fought and died in the Battle of Midway? That's so cool!"

"No, actually," Misato said, with a little seriousness and confusion in her voice "I just had a third cousin who drowned while swimming in the lagoon during World War III…"

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A solitary figure stood leaning against the fence of the airport's administrative building, staring down at the tiny figures emerging from the belly of the cargo aircraft. The figure herself wore a sundress in a pleasant yellow shade, and her blue eyes looked with displeasure upon the three shortest figures walking out of the plane – to her mind, they were but schoolboys.

A scant minute later, just inside the cool terminal building of the airport's terminal, those cold blue eyes met Shinji's briefly as her gaze passed over him and his friends. Her expression changed a bit, from a slight frown to a slight frown with a slight smirk in it, as one of her akimbo arms shot up to wave happily.

"Hey Misato, hey Dr Akagi!" she smiled at them.

"Asuka!" Misato yelled back, with the same vigour. "I haven't seen you since you were six! My, how you've grown!"

Under the subdued howl of the air-conditioning, nobody heard Ritsuko's chuckle but herself, as her mental image of her friend clashed with the almost aunt-like way she'd greeted the red-haired girl.

"Yes!" Asuka announced "I've fully matured now!"

A soft gust of wind ruffled her dress as she paused – the wind was not quite strong enough to make it billow – and she brought a finger theatrically to her lip.

"Now… which one of you is the Third Child?" she said, jabbing her hand outwards and letting her index finger pan over the three boys.

"Maybe you shouldn't talk about that in here…" Misato began cautiously.

Asuka watched the three boys' expressions carefully as she pointed at them in turn; the big one was nonplussed, the one with glasses was surprised, and the awkward-looking one… was that _embarrassment_? One of the other boys shot him a look as her gaze dwelt on him a fraction of a second longer. _Yes…_

"That's it?" she exclaimed "That's the Third Child?"

She lowered her arm just as Misato raised her in a cautioning motion.

"How disappointing. He doesn't look like he could kill a Rakbu, let alone VR sim of one!"

"I'll have you know Shinji has killed _three_ of those monsters!" the larger, more muscular of the three boys injected.

"Yeah!" the bespectacled one joined him "He's a real hero who's defended Japan from _real monsters_!"

There was a faint slap, just about audible over the air-conditioning, as Misato's hand impacted with her face. Asuka crossed her arms.

"They're called _Rakbu_", she said impatiently "And I've heard he got help from another Eva against the third one. Not very impressive."

"What do _you_ know about—"

Kensuke's worship was aborted by a firm grip against the back of his shirt, almost pulling him to the floor. It was, perhaps, for his own best.

"Why don't we go someplace you kids can talk," Misato said with a groan. "Someplace _quieter_!"

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"…and during my last synch-test I logged a 72.1 peak as well as over fifteen continuous minutes of 60 of greater!" Asuka said enthusiastically as she and Shinji's friends and colleagues boarded a military shuttle-bus. "Which, I believe is a new record!" she added with pride and smiled at Ritsuko.

"Fifteen minutes? That _is_ impressive!" Ritsuko said as she found herself a seat next to Misato. "The report from Dr Delacroix will be interesting; I wonder how the stability-equilibrium propagates at such high values…" She pursed her lips. "This reminds me, I need to check with Ibuki…" the doctor continued, lost in her own thoughts as she searcher her jacket for her phone.

"It wasn't Marie," Asuka injected "It was while we stopped over in California, so it was Susan who handled the analysis. I'm supposed to pass on her greetings, by the way."

Misato reclined in her seat, sinking into the soft pillows. It was much better than cargo plane seats, and there were no painfully tugging seatbelts this time around. Everything were so relaxed on Pacific Islands like this, even military ones. White sand, nice people, warm water and a bright sun… Maybe she could find some free time to spend on the beach; she felt like she deserved it after the stress off three Rakbu in just two months – that, and living with a teenaged boy. That had certainly proved more stressful than she'd imagined; all the things she had to do to make their home look at least somewhat respectable, cooking for two…

Misato's internal rambling were brought to an abrupt halt when a young man shouted at their bus.

"Hold the door!"

There was something familiar about the voice, Misato realized, though she couldn't quite place it. Her eyes panned over the clean-shaven face as the man boarded the bus.

"I believe we're going the same place," he said and smiled at them – at her, in fact.

As he walked down the aisle, she could even recognize his gait.

A sudden thought raced through her cyberbrain. _Loose some muscle,_ she thought to herself as she glimpsed at the loose-fitting blue shirt. _Subtract ten years from the face, add some stubble… It can't be…_

"Kaji!" Asuka yelled. "Are you having lunch with us?"

"I'm afraid I am," the young man said and smiled, the corners of his mouth almost smirking "How could I resist when there are so many lovely ladies here on this island?"

The smile. It was him. He was here.

Misato cancelled her plans to go to the beach. She suddenly remembered how much work requisition forms were. They had to be signed and checked in triplicate. There were probably some ambiguities in them she needed to get clarified by someone high-ranking and busy.

"Not even a 'hello', Misato? Has it been so long?" he asked, looking at her with a clever smile.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Misato blurted out. Kaji's face faked a dejected shock, then returned to an even wider smile.

Yes, there were going to be some ambiguities in the requisition forms, Misato decided. Many of them, and they all needed to be checked by a panel of admirals and generals. Probably a few presidents too. And a king. And all three Popes.

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"Are you seeing anyone?" Kaji asked. His head was propped up on his clasped hands, and – much to Misato's annoyance, he was still smiling.

"I believe that's none of your business, Mr Kaji." She answered coldly while folding her arms and staring out the window of the café.

Shinji and his friends were nervously trying not to stare at the two bickering adults. Ritsuko seemed not to notice anything at all.

"Ah, so you are!" Kaji said triumphantly. "Who is it that has stolen your heart? Who is the competition?"

Kaji fixed Shinji with a gaze.

"Is it him? Tell me, Shinji Ikari, does she still toss and turn at night?" he said, fixing Shinji with a level and utterly serious stare.

Shinji's eyes shot wide open, and his cheeks turned a particularly bright shade of scarlet. The sudden look of surprise, as if someone had interrupted the careful assembly of a house of cards by flipping the table over, was shared by his classmates. Asuka's face had also turned a strong shade of red, with traces of green.

Ritsuko momentarily raised her eyes, then returned to her croissant and coffee as if nothing had happened.

A particularly careful observer might have noticed a slight upwards curve on her lips as a powerful motion jerked the heavy wooden table. She almost chuckled when Kaji flinched a little.

"What. Is that." Misato began, pausing between each word to exhale laboriously. "Supposed. To mean?"

"So quick to defend him…" Kaji said.

Tea and coffee cups clattered as another powerful jerk shook the table. Shinji was becoming acutely aware that other people in the room were staring at them.

"She hasn't changed, has she, Shinji?" Kaji peered at the blue-eyed boy.

Ritsuko hastily saved her PDA from a sticky, brown death as the table shook a third time and toppled her coffee cup.

"Hmpf. Turning off your pain receptors is cheating." Misato said and stared intensely at Kaji.

"Um, excuse me sir," Shinji began, "But how do you know my name?"

"You're quite famous in my line of work; the famous Third Child, who killed a Rakbu without prior combat experience!" Kaji said.

"Or training. Or warning." Shinji added with _sotto voce_. He was vaguely aware that the red-haired girl was fixing him with a harsh glare for reasons he could not quite determine. "So… what is your line of work, Mr Kaji?"

"No need for the 'Mister', Shinji." Kaji said as he leant back in his chair. "But I am in the oceanography service, I've been told."

Shinji raised his eyebrows quizzically.

"You've been told?" he said with a voice that wavered slightly from confusion.

"You're not very bright, are you, Third Child?" Asuka said softly and gave him a flat look.

"But yes, Mr Kaji, why _are_ you here?" Misato asked coldly.

"Officially, I am accompanying Asuka to Japan. Unofficially… well, let's just say that after three months in Antarctica, a cruise to the sunny beaches of California and Midway seems like a vacation to paradise." He answered.

Misato relaxed a bit. But only a little.

"Antarctica." she said, warily.

"Yes."

"As in—"

"Yes." Kaji answered quickly.

Captain Katsuragi shifted her pose, and stopped crossing her arms. Just as she was about to pose a new question, a large, muscular man of European descent dressed in an IAN admiral's uniform barged into the café, followed by two heavy-built men carrying a young Japanese girl between them.

"Mr Kaji!" he shouted as his stern eyes caught hold of Kaji's ponytail. "I caught another one of your kids snooping around in my ship! Haven't I told you military vessels are no place for children?"

"That is not my ward," Kaji explained simply. "If I'm not wrong, she's the daughter of a somewhat prominent general. Now, what was his name again…"

Kaji relaxed in his chair as he theatrically mimed racking his mind for the name. "It's on the tip of my tongue…"

"Kirishima?" Kensuke shouted in surprise.

"Hey Aida!" Mana Kirishima smiled, and waved awkwardly from between the two seamen's grip. "I find myself drawn towards you. By these muscular men."

"Ah, yes, General Kirishima, that was the name," Kaji said and leaned forwards. "He's here because of the renegotiations of the Kyosho-Boston Pacific Naval Defence Treaty, I believe…"

The admiral looked at Mana, whose entire face was lit up with a 'told-you-so'-grin as the two seamen released her arms. Kaji motioned to leave, rising from his chair.

"That reminds me, you'll have to excuse me, I have some work to attend to. Katsuragi, we'll have to talk about my adventures in Antarctica at some later point, perhaps over a cup of coffee?" he said, smiling. There was only a hint of promised impropriety in his eyes.

"Yes, that would be—" Misato caught herself and clenched her fists.

"So that's a date then, pick you up at seven?" he said as he moved swiftly to the door, seeking to make a clean getaway.

"Don't think I'm done with you, Kaji! Just because Miss Kirishima isn't your responsibility doesn't mean I've forgotten that you still haven't gotten your childrens' toy off my ship!" the admiral snapped, glaring at the departing man.

"Ah, but Eva Unit-02 doesn't stop in Midway, that's merely where my responsibility ends." Kaji said with a cunning smile. "The _Eva_ is going all the way to Kobe; I believe the woman in the red jacket has the requisition-forms."

With that, Kaji disappeared trough the entrance to the café, and Misato was hugging the back of her head with her arms, staring into the table in front of her. She barely noticed the clatter of chairs as Asuka rose and followed the man out.

"This isn't happening", she muttered to herself. "This is a bad dream, no, a nightmare!"

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The wind was brisk in Askua's hair, and looking out at the large concrete dam that enclosed the atoll, she dangled her legs over the edge of the building's roof.

"So, what did you think of the Third Child?" Kaji asked.

"Honestly?" Asuka leant backwards, until she could see Kaji stand upside down, looming like a majestic stature. Part of her hoped he could see how her cheeks reddened when she looked at him. "He didn't really seem all that great. I expected something more. I'd have though the Third Child would be less of a child – don't laugh, you know what I mean."

"I'd never laugh at you, Asuka." Kaji said in a reassuring tone.

"But you were constantly chuckling at Major Katsuragi, or at least holding back a giggle." Asuka replied as she turned to face him in a less trained posture.

"That's because she's an old friend, and we used to trade blows all the time." Kaji smirked. _'Trade blows'. I have to see if I can work that into our next conversation._

"But, anyway," Asuka – oblivious to Kaji's cunning smile – continued "I know _I'm_ a genius, and Dan's as much of a genius as his father despite not using it for anything worthwhile, and Susan told me the First Child gets excellent marks. Shouldn't the Third Child be… more bright? You'd think that NERV Japan could do better than having two thirds of their pilots be Noh and Noh's male twin…"

"Hmmm…" Kaji hummed as he stared into the distance, where a crew in orange overalls were doing maintenance work on the dam. The electronic overlay in his telescopic vision told him their security passes checked out. "Don't sell the Third Child short. He scored a peak of over 60% during his first time piloting."

"But that's nothing!" Asuka almost yelled. "I can do over 60 consistently, and I've never even been in a battle yet."

"I didn't mean 'battle'," Kaji explained "First time in an Eva. During his first synchronization."

Asuka jumped to her feet and dusted quickly off her dress.

"But that shouldn't be possible!" she said, right before she stormed off towards the stairs.

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Mana Kirishima sipped her green tea calmly in the café, having taken Asuka's now vacant spot.

**S. Toji** So…

The text popped up in a chat window in Kensuke's peripheral vision.

**S. Toji** you gonna ask her out or what?  
**A. Kensuke** what?  
**A. Kensuke** why should I ask her out?  
**S. Toji** don't pretend you don't like her.

Kensuke shot Toji a glare, but the heavy-set boy just flashed a wide grin. He tried to find some way to phrase that he wasn't interested in girls just because they were named after WWII warships, but before he could find just the right words, Mana interrupted the chat.

"Hey, you guys want to see military dolphins?" she blurted out.

"Dolphins?" Toji asked and raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Mana answered as her face lit up with enthusiasm. "Midway has one of the largest pods of military dolphins. They're like dolphins… only genefixed to be smarter and kinder, almost like a human. I bet I could use my card to get you guys access to one of the tanks. My dad said it was OK to bring a few friends, and the smart dolphins are totally cool."

She hesitated for a moment, realizing she'd been talking rather fast. She tried to read the interest in their faces.

"So what do you say?"

"Smart dolphins?" Kensuke said. "That sounds cool. I'm willing to go."

Mana turned to Shinji.

"How about you, Ikari?"

"Well, it does sound kinda interesting—"

"Third Child!" a voice bellowed from the opening to the café, interrupting him. A pair of eyes so cold he imagined they could have caused another small ice age met his own in a hard stare. "You're coming with me. I have something to show you."

Without waiting for a reply, she walked over to the table and grabbed Shinji's wrist in an iron grip. At once, she started dragging the bewildered boy out of the sofa without acknowledging Ritsuko or the three other teenagers.

"Wait, where are you going?" Mana asked.

"That's none of your business." Asuka replied. "And even if it were, I'm not allowed to tell you."

Mana's eyes narrowed.

"Like there's anywhere on this atoll that you'd have access to…" suddenly Mana lost her certainty and left the words hanging. Asuka seized upon the opportunity and continued dragging Shinji after her at a brisk pace out the door.

Mana shot a glance at her mobile phone, which she'd placed on the café table next to her can of green tea. She hesitated for a moment, then snatched it and stormed after them.

"Wait… what just happened?" Kensuke asked Toji, who like Aida, was trying to catch up mentally on the situation. They gave each other quizzical stares.

"It appears," Ritsuko said in a flat tone of voice without looking away from her PDA, "that the girl you've spent the last ten minutes staring at – exactly where I will be as polite as to not remark upon – just stormed out of the room in pursuit of another boy."

Kensuke gave her a confused look. Ritsuko put down her stylus and turned to face the freckled boy.

"You should probably chase after her then," she explained with a hiss. "Go now. Shoo!"

After the two boys had left, she leant back and stretched her legs, before picking up her stylus and returning to her work.

"_Finally_ some peace and quiet," she muttered under her breath. The woman stretched out, clicking her finger-joints, and yawned. Then the scratching of her stylus was the only noise against the background hum of the base.

A little later, she smirked a little and suppressed a chuckle. "Oh, to be back in high school…"

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Shinji wheezed as he tried to keep up with Soryu's pace. Her hand, which was comfortably warm against his skin, was uncomfortably tugging at his wrist every time he fell behind. It wasn't as much that he _minded_ that quite attractive girls wanted to have him all alone – but in his mind, he'd always imagined that he'd still be able to feel his own fingers – and there was a rising feeling of disquiet and awkwardness, as she hadn't spoken for over ten minutes and he really didn't know the girl at all.

He tried to think about what he knew about her, to take his mind off the faint taste of LCL in his mouth. She was part Japanese, and she was an Eva pilot like him. _She's about my age, and she's kinda rude to me sometimes but maybe that's just because she knows what's going on? …I guess?_ he thought. Wait, why was there even the taste of LCL in his mouth? Maybe that wasn't a question he wanted to know the answer to. Maybe he should think about Soryu again.

He'd only known her for about an hour, and she hadn't said much to him except for when she would call him 'stupid', 'dull' or similar things. It made it difficult to find something to say to her, Shinji imagined. He could ask her where they were going, or say something about how nice the blue water in the lagoon looked… but she'd probably just roll her eyes at him or call him an idiot again.

For a moment, Shinji considered letting his eyes rest on the part of where Asuka's dress parted to reveal the exotic and flawless skin of her back – or even more tempting, where the yellow fabric curved slightly around her butt… but it'd be really awkward if she caught him. She kept turning her head sharply, as if she was some kind of hawk, to look at him from time to time, and he really didn't want to make her think he was a creep.

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Shinji massaged his wrist and tried to get the blood to flow back into his hand. The red-haired girl had finally let his arm go when they reached the locks that bridged the gap between the western and eastern halves of the coral reef. The concrete dam and its locks completed a circle that completely sealed off the inside of the atoll from the outside. It was, Shinji mused, almost as impressive a piece of mega-engineering as the Kobe geofront.

"You trained at the Matsushiro geofront," Asuka asked him, as they waited for the American guards to process their NERV ID cards. "didn't you, Third Child?"

Shinji turned to face her. She looked less stern now; almost pleasant.

"Uh… no," he answered. "I've been training at Kobe the last months, Miss Soryu."

"_Mein Gott, seinen Sie verstockt!_ Asuka muttered in a low voice and creased her eyebrows to a near-scowl, her face returning once more to its much less pleasant form. "No, I meant where did you learn to pilot an Eva? You trained with Noh, right?"

Shinji looked perplexed at her, and then avoided her gaze.

"I never had any training until August this year," he explained. "And who's Noh?"

"Hiryu Nochishite." Asuka said, her mouth forming the unfamiliar syllables with care. "'Noh'. The Reserve Pilot. You can't possibly not know who she…"

Asuka stopped, her eyes glazing over for a split second while her cyberbrain opened a calendar.

"Impossible. You _cannot_ have started training this August." The blue-eyed girl stared intently at him again, her arms at her hips, as if her sheer force of questioning could change what he had said. "You are _lying_. The first Rakbu attacked the night to the first of August. It takes the average pilot five months to be able to even synch, and that's after a year of pre-synch training. I'll accept that you succeeded synching for your first time during a combat launch, but with no prior training is… well, it simply shouldn't be possible!"

"I'm not lying!" Shinji protested, raising his arms to a defensive pose. "I had… uh… on-the-job training?" He laughed weakly at his own joke, and quickly silenced himself as Asuka continued to stare incredulously at him. He really wasn't making a good first impression, he thought to himself.

"This is kind of a let-down, you know?" Asuka said with a smile. "I was expecting the Rakbu to be difficult to defeat. More challenging that the simulations. Now I finally understand why they let someone like Dan and Noh become pilots."

"Who is Dan?" Shinji asked.

"He's an Eva-pilot without an Eva. Formally he's on the waiting list for the European Coalition," Asuka said with pride in her voice, "but really? He's not even a reserve pilot. And he maxes out at about 20% synch ratio, so he has problems even with simple simulations, like the one set in Beijing."

"The one set in Beijing is _murderous_…" Shinji mumbled.

"No, it's dead simple," Asuka corrected him. "You're probably making the same mistakes Noh are. Susan says it's a systematic flaw with the pilots from NERV Japan. You just need to—"

"Who's Susan?" Shinji interrupted. Asuka gave him a cold, flat stare.

"I wasn't finished talking." She said with an angry undertone "And how can you be so ignorant of—" She looked at something behind Shinji and groaned. "Not those idiots…"

Shinji glanced over his shoulder to see Mana running towards the guard station, with Toji and Kensuke behind her, trying to keep up.

"I knew you'd be going this way," Mana said when she'd closed the distance to Shinji and Asuka. A few seconds later, Toji and Kensuke arrived. Toji was panting like a dog, and Kensuke looked as if he was about to collapse from exhaustion. Asuka grimaced as she caught Toji glance at her.

"Ten… minutes…" Toji wheezed. "How can anyone…" he took a deep breath "run for ten minutes… at that… pace?"

"Well, it took some time to figure out where they'd gone, and I didn't want to lose them," Mana explained. "And I had to not run down – and over – an admiral this time; they get really pissed if you do that…"

Kensuke chucked in between his deep, recuperating breaths. Asuka rolled her eyes. She smiled when the officer behind the desk handed her back her and Shinji's NERV ID cards.

"Everything seems to be in order, Miss Langely Soryu. The two of you can proceed through the gate," the officer said and waved in the direction of a guarded turnstile.

Once again, Asuka seized Shinji's wrist in an iron grip and walked towards the turnstile. She mumbled 'bye' as she swept their cards at the turnstile and walked on towards that bascule bridge that crossed the locks.

"Hey, wait for me!" Mana shouted as she started running after them.

She ran through the turnstile, barely stopping to swipe her card. Mana ran on towards the drawbridge, before Kensuke had even managed to get back onto his feet. He reached as far as the turnstile, where the Imperial American Navy seaman gave him a suspicious look.

"This isn't really a place for civilians to congregate," he said with a deep, booming voice. "If you don't have permission to pass through here, I must ask you to leave."

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Asuka lifted the tarpaulin triumphantly, letting the sunlight beam into the transport deck of the _Othello_, a rebuilt oil tanker.

"That's… a different colour." Shinji commented. "I expected it to be white."

"That's because your Eva is a test-bed for developments," Asuka explained with a smirk. "It's only the Test Model, and Unit-00 is even more primitive. But that's not all that's different about Unit-02."

She lifted the opening in the cover higher and waved for Shinji to take a step inside.  
Mana took advantage of Asuka's hospitality and climbed in after Shinji, ignoring Asuka's frown.

"It's warm in here," she commented as her eyes peered through the damp haze.

_That's an understatement,_ Shinji though as sweat poured out of his skin like the sea through a ruptured dike. The air was dense and humid, and the light was a mix of bleak halogen lights and muted sunlight shining through the tarpaulin cover, but he could still see clearly the immense bulk of the Eva; the view from the opening hadn't quite managed to encompass the sheer _size_ of the mechanical monster. His mind wandered back to the time he'd first seen Unit 01 – but instead of a harrowing reunion with his father, he was instead sharing the moment with two highly attractive girls of his own age; it was something of an improvement. Even if one was all shouty.

"Wow," was all he managed to say.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Asuka said as she strode across the raft bridge that connected the deck to the Eva's head. "This is Evangelion Unit Zero Two, the first Production Model ."

Mana wandered out onto the pier and stared intently at the Eva's body through the water.

"Production Model?" she asked as she jaunted over to the head and looked curiously into one of Unit 02's four large, eye-like lenses.

"Eva Unit-00 was a prototype model, made largely to develop the robotic and cybernetic frameworks needed for the pilot-vehicle interface," Asuka explained as she climbed onto the tallest point of the Eva's back with a series of jumps she managed to make look easy. "It was never intended for combat or even operational use. Unit-01, meanwhile, which is the one the Third Child here…"

Asuka waved her hand at Shinji. The boy frowned. Half-remembered security briefings raised the fact that... uh, maybe Soryu shouldn't be saying this.

"…is the 'test model', and was built largely as a test-bed for the armour, sensors and weapons-technology that was developed for the later Eva units;"

She waited for the words to sink in, letting the last word trail on as she inhaled softly.

"…the Mass Production units, which are superior in all respects and without the flaws that plagued the prototype and test models. It's the world's first _real_ Evangelion, and it is, simply, the _best_."

A thundering scream of metal being crushed shook the transport ship. Suddenly, the calm water made tall waves and the raft bridge whipped back and forth like a taut rope. Mana fell backwards off a raft and Shinji barely managed to catch her hand. Suddenly, he found himself slammed down hard onto a raft. The air was kicked out of his lungs and his whole chest hurt. Asuka struggled to stay standing as Unit 02 swayed beneath her.

_Ow ow ow_ Shinji thought, as he struggled to keep Mana from sinking. _Cyborgs are heavy._

"What was that?" Asuka yelled.

"I don't… know." Shinji answered through clenched teeth. He tried to pull himself up from his prone position, but struggled to move under Mana's weight. He felt his arm go numb as her iron grip tightened.

"What are you doing?" Asuka asked him as he climbed down.

Before Shinji could answer, Mana's other arm reached up from the pool and took hold of the raft. She pulled herself, soaked and miserable, out of the water.

"Thanks Shinji," she said, gasping for air. "Seriously. Thank you. Really."

"You're OK? Good." Asuka concluded "Let's see what that was!"

Shinji ran after Asuka and emerged into the sun. A thick pillar of black smoke rose from the sinking wreck of a nearby warship. Suddenly, another warship was cut in half, as if an invisible knife had struck through its middle.

"Torpedoes?" Mana said as she caught up with the two pilots.

"It's a Rakbu," Shinji said. "This is really bad."

"A Rakbu?" Asuka asked. "How can you be so sure?"

"It's like the second Rakbu… I think." Shinji said. There was the scent of ozone in the air, and he could taste the tang of LCL in his mouth. For just a moment, he felt like he was back in Unit-01, a burning pain in his chest. "We should talk to Misato," he said urgently.

"You think?" Asuka said and looked at him suspiciously. "Isn't that a little premat—"

Asuka was struck speechless by the sight of a destroyer rising into the air in front of her. It was floating in the air with no visible means of support, as water poured off its bow. The hull crumpled and twisted, as if held in an invisible hand. Suddenly, electrical arcs shot from the ship and down onto a nearby vessel. The destroyer was blazing, and burning IAN seamen fell from the deck as it was shook like a rattle.

Black oil poured from the ruptured hull and into the sea. A trail of fire swept downward until Shinji looked upon a waterfall of fire – and then the destroyer was torn in two, its midsection crushed like an empty coffee can.

"A Rakbu…" Asuka smirked.

She looked at Shinji's friend. Mana was stunned, her eyes wide and her mouth halfway to gaping. Her hands were clasped hard around the railing, and her knuckles were pale white. Asuka shook her once.

"You should get off this boat." Asuka said with a gravely serious voice.

She watched Mana run down the ramp and onto the atoll, then turned to Shinji, "Third Child, come with me!"

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Havoc had come to Midway. The 16th Imperial American Navy fleet was desperately scrambling to fight an enemy they could not see. Chaos reigned as ships were torn asunder before they'd even realized they were under attack. The majestic vessels poured their black blood into the oceans, covering the sea in a lake of fire. The screams of dying seamen were faint over the roar of the burning oil.

"Yeah, I don't care what SOP is, I _have_ authority in this situation." Cpt Katsuragi spoke into a military radio resting on her shoulder as she put on her jacket with one arm and let another fly rapidly over the keyboard of her laptop. "No, this is a UN matter, and that means I get to speak to the admiral."

Holding her laptop with one hand and typing with the other, she rushed to the café's window to get a better view, still trying to hold the radio in place between her head and shoulder. She shifted her attention to her cybercom.

[Captain Katsuragi, NERV Japan. What's the fastest plane you've got?] She winced as a destroyer was ripped into pieces like paper confetti by a throng of invisible tendrils. The remaining superstructure was slammed into an escaping frigate. [Kobe international airport. Four and a half thousand kilometres. I'll give you a few seconds to find out,] she said.

She switched back to the radio as the tactical map on her laptop updated.

"Yeah, the Admiral's aide is _fine_, I just need to ask him to… don't you dare go static on me you piece of shit radio!" The captain awkwardly balanced on one foot as she dragged a table up to the window for her laptop with the other. She returned to her cybercom.

[The C-220 transport can get to Kobe? How long does that take?] she asked. [Six hours is too long. Can a fighter plane do it?] She frowned as she was told the answer. She glanced at her tactical map. [There's a carrier a thousand kilometres north of Wake Island. Can it be done in two jaunts? Give me two seconds.]

She picked up the radio again. A small icon appeared in her peripheral vision. It read **[Call from Shinji]**, underneath a picture of the boy looking glum. She accepted the brain-to-brain call.

[Shinji!] she said before he could say anything. [Where are you and Asuka?]. Her hands were racing over the keyboard as Shinji replied. [That's good, she has my permission to launch. Tell her to hurry.]

"Hello! NERV delivery!" she said with an overly sweet voice into her radio. "Would you like to order some data on this enemy and the most effective countermeasures to use against it?"

"This is a combat situation!" the reply came, shouting. She could hear the Admiral's aide list casualties in the background. "Don't disturb us!"

"Now, this is just my opinion," Misato began, holding back the desire to call the admiral an ignorant, petulant child "But that's very clearly a Rakbu, and killing them is kinda NERV's specialty."

She winced once more as a wave of missiles hit dangerously close to a sinking frigate, hitting nothing but water. The fleet was going to torpedo itself at this rate.

"All I need you to do is to protect the Eva transport," she said. "Unit-02 has top priority."

She heard a plastic 'clack', and the admiral's voice became distant: "All ships, fire at will!"

_It's pointless!_ she thought to herself, before resuming the cyber-call.

[Can the plane take a teenager?] she asked. [A _teen-ager_. Tango-Echo-Echo-November.]

For a split second, Misato was distracted by the sight of a helicopter carrier's bow rising out of the water until it was nearly vertical. Half a dozen attack helicopters slid off the deck, swirling into the water. Some were snapped in two as their refuelling cables were drawn taut and bounced back.

[He's a hundred-and-sixty-one centimetres tall. I just want him in Kobe ASAP!] she said over the cybercom.

[No, I don't know how much that is in feet. I only want to know if he can fit in the co-pilot's seat.]

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Yet again, Shinji found himself dragged along by the wrist by a red-haired German girl. She'd first raced him to a locker to pick up a heavy NERV back with her name on the tag, and now she was dragging him back into the ship's island for reasons she hadn't bothered telling him.

"Why is the Rakbu attacking Midway?" he asked, to break the silence. "They've never attacked outside Japan before…"

She gave him a daft stare.

"First, read up on some history." She said as she closed the door and looked at a descending staircase. "Secondly, it might be after my Unit-02. You must have noticed they go after Evas in combat."

"Yeah, but—" Shinji began.

"Wait here," Asuka ordered and ran down the stairs.

Shinji flexed his hand and sat down on ascending stairs. He needed to rest, but he really also should make sure that Asuka got to her Eva, he felt. Misato hadn't given him any orders, and she'd sounded really busy over the cybercom. It wasn't as if he could do anything anyway, he reasoned. _But what's Asuka up to?_, he asked himself. _Why did she stop here?_

"Um," he said as he swung halfway downstairs. "What are you doing—oh."

Asuka was putting on her plug suit. Of course. That made sense. And to do so she'd stripped naked. Her underwear was with her yellow dress, thrown haphazardly onto her bag. It was white, like Rei's. And she'd not quite put on the plug suit yet, so he could get a quite ample view of her chest-area. The right thing to do, Shinji knew, would have been to turn away. He would have liked to turn away, but different parts of his brain were still trying to catch up with the unexpected shock of seeing a half-naked girl his age.

"Pervert!" Asuka shouted at him, breaking the spell. "You rude and thoughtless idiot of a jerk!"

Shinji spun around and stared intently at the wall. He felt, to say the least, somewhat embarrassed.

"Why must all boys be such perverted stupid pigs?" Asuka ranted on as she fit her hands into the gloves of the plug suit.

Shinji's head was spinning, his mind like a soup torn between some quite _delicious_ images of what the red-haired girl would look like in the sealed plug suit on one hand, and the shame and awkwardness of the whole situation on the other hand.

Something soft landed on his head. He picked the dark grey plug suit off his head and gave Asuka a quizzical look.

"Here's one for you too," Asuka said sternly.

"Uh…" Shinji mumbled.

"What's the problem?" she frowned, if possible, even more at him. "Hurry up and put it on!"

"But… why do I need to wear one?" he asked "Aren't you the pilot?"

Asuka rolled her eyes at him.

"Well, of _course_ I'm going to pilot it. But I'm going to show you how to properly pilot an Eva. And since you seem to be the best that Japan has to offer in the piloting department, I suppose I'll have to keep you safe, and in the cockpit with me is clearly the safest place to be!" The explosions as the prides of the Imperial American fleet were torn apart accentuated her point. "Now put that thing on and come with me!"

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The inside of Unit 02's entry plug was identical to Unit 01's – except this time Shinji was not alone, and the Soryu girl was sitting in the pilot's seat. He, meanwhile, was floating in the LCL and holding onto her seat.

"Now I'm going to give you the show of your life!" Asuka announced, and handed him a fibre-optic cable. "Do the amphibious configuration for me while I handle the battery start up."

Shinji lifted his hair, which flopped lazily in the LCL, and plugged it in, only to be assaulted by a flurry of menus in a language he didn't understand.

"What's taking so long, Third Child?" she asked him in her now rather familiar complaining voice.

"I can't read the menus," he explained. "I don't know which options to pick."

"Seriously, you don't know any German words at all?" she asked exasperatedly.

"I know 'boden-weltraum waffen steurung systeme'," he replied and smiled awkwardly.

"First, it's pronounced _Boden-Weltraum-Waffensteurungsysteme_," she said, "and secondly that's not going to be of any use at all."

"Unit-02!" her voice was loud "switch from German to Japanese language configuration."

"There," she said, "now you can be useful."

[Shinji?] Misatos voice rang over his cybercom, [Shinji, where are you right now?]

[I'm with Asuka,] he answered, [in Unit-02]

[Oh, good, that's—] suddenly Misato stopped talking [what the hell are you doing inside Unit-02?] she yelled. Shinji reflexively tried to protect his ears, but his cochlear implants were rather ignorant of whether his ears were covered or not. [Only Asuka needs to pilot the Eva, I need you to come to the airport immediately!]

"Uh, Miss Soryu," Shinji tried cautiously, as Asuka was running through the pre-launch procedures.

"Shut up!" she yelled, "Can't you see I'm busy, you idiot?"

Suddenly Shinji felt the Eva shift from its prone position. He could vaguely feel that its legs were retracting into a crouching position. Then, suddenly, the muted sunlight became strong, and he could see the destruction that had been wrecked. No matter where he looked, he could see rivers of burning oil running atop the uneasy surface of the ocean, and the immense, knife-like shapes of warships had become steel coffins, slowly sinking beneath the waves. And then he spotted it – an immense V-shaped wave of foamy water cruise through the water, heading straight and fast right for him.

And then he was slammed hard down against the Entry Plug, as his view rocketed skywards. He recovered just in time to see the white, V-shaped wave crash straight through the _Othello_ as if it was made from matchsticks. He suddenly felt a little lighter as the ground approached at breakneck speeds. Instinctively, his view swung to the battery-meter.

"We only have fifty-eight seconds of power!" he exclaimed.

"That's plenty of time," Asuka said with unwavering certainty.

[Katsuragi], she said over Unit 02's cybercom. [I need the Eva's umbilical cord on the flight deck of the _Zachary Taylor_ ASAP!]

[I'll see what I can do, Asuka], Cpt Katsuragi replied.

Unit 02 hit the ground hard. Shinji felt his stomach protest. Then, before he'd gotten his senses back, Asuka was already charging along the coral reef. Then she leaped across the locks and aimed for one of the aircraft carriers still docked outside the atoll. Shinji's mind was still trying to catch up when Unit 02 landed on the flight deck of the _Zachary Taylor_ and seized the Eva-sized power-cable in its hand.

"But we still don't have any guns!" Shinji noted.

"In your Test Model, perhaps, Third Child." Asuka said triumphantly, "but this is the one and only Mass Production model, and it has integrated weapons!"

Asuka flicked a molly switch on her left joystick, and the entry plug's panoramic screen was filled with ominously red notifications.

"…which are not loaded under transport, for safety reasons." Asuka frowned. "At least I still have the knife."

One of the dark green pylons of the Eva swung open, and an immense knife swung out and landed in the ready hand of Unit 02. With another swift movement Asuka adopted a battle-ready stance, with the knife pointing out towards the breaking V-shaped wave.

Then, suddenly, the wave flattened out. Where it would have gone, a torrent of ripples continued, made by rain from a clear sky. Shinji and Asuka glanced upwards.

"_Mein Gott!_" Asuka began.

"It's…" Shinji struggled to find the right word.

"Huge!" they said in unison.

Huge, if anything, was a misnomer. The rakbu was over three hundred meters long. Its body was vaguely whale-shaped, yet also ray-shaped; a large fin on each side cast a shadow wider than the flight deck of the aircraft carrier. Shinji could see its gaping maw, each tooth an iridescent spire glowing in the crimson red light that emanated from its gullet. Above the jaw was a massive umbrella-like shape, transparent like glass, inside which two incandescent red spheres glowed menacingly. Radially at the edge of the aboral surface, long tendrils, each like single glass noodle, were extending forwards in a glittering, grasping chaos.

The observation took but a small fraction a second. Asuka, near-instinctively, jumped backwards and to the side. The immense bulk of the third Rakbu came crashing down on the flight deck. A dozen tendrils swarmed around the Evas legs, while another half-dozen thin strands lashed against the Eva's torso.

Asuka cut at the flailing tendrils. She could feel the impact, but the cuts were invisible against the Rakbu's transparent skin. It did not bleed, it did not even flinch. As the strands near her legs began coiling, Asuka made Unit 02 dance awkwardly on the uneven carpet of Rakbu tendrils.

"You've fought the Rakbu before, Third Child!" Asuka shouted. "Any advice?"

"Uh…" Shinji racked his mind. "Stab the red sphere?"

Asuka flickered a look at him. He was certain she'd actually managed to roll her eyes at him, even as she was tracking the path of a dozen near-invisible appendages with her eyes.

"There are _two_ of them," she said sarcastically. "You've put your two months of training to good use, I see."

"Stab them both?"

Yes, she was certainly disgusted with him. Still, she lunged at the exoumbrellal membrane with the Eva's knife. The edges of the wound reflected light and darkness as the dark pillars of rising black smoke and the mid-day sun competed for attention. Immediately, a pair of raised tendrils shot like vipers for Unit-02. Shinji was tossed around inside the entry plug as the Eva shifted violently. The knife-arm swung away – but the glass-like strands coiled around the free arm. Asuka's left arm strained visible as she fought against the tight grip.

Suddenly Shinji felt like his chest was trying to implode on itself. The panoramic screens of the entry plug were flooded with reports of failing subsystems.

"Dismiss!" Asuka shouted as she attempted to use her free arm to cut herself free.

More error reports filled their peripheral vision. A good fifth of the screen was filled by **[High Voltage Alert – Disengage]**. Shinji figured he should do something about it, but the pain in his arm was numbening, and he just felt like curling over.

"Dismiss!" Asuka shouted, a hint of desperation in her voice. Shinji caught her face as it was reflected against the dark glass of a dead screen. She was gritting her teeth and clenching her eyes almost shut. He looked back at her, and he could see her left arm twitch violently.

_Is this what I look like when I fight?_, he wondered idly as another electrical shock caused his torso to sting from all directions at once.

Asuka's eyes were wide and angry. She swung fast, hard and direct at the restricting tendrils – and at the same time coordinated her Eva's feet against the twisting mass of strands it stood on – and she knew she could keep it up. She bit her lip – and suddenly tasted blood. Her eyes darted over the failing screens. There had to be an opening somewhere; she refused to believe the relentless lashes were without flaw – and then she found it.

With trained economy of motion, she swung the Eva's knife into a hammer grip. Outside the reach of the flailing tendrils, she struck against the nearest eye-like red sphere. The aboral membrane ruptured under the force of her strike. She could feel the knife sink into the Rakbu's strange flesh, as if she was cutting through syrup – and she hit the crimson sphere, and her knife sank deep.

The iridescent red sphere exploded, and the glowing red fluid spilled out of the wound. A blood-like pattern formed on the inside of the umbrella-like head. One of the tendrils coiled around Unit 02's left arm felt limp and slipped off.

Then a screeching, ear-sundering scream rang through the Eva. The whale-like bulk of the Rakbu shuddered, and it rolled over and off the flight deck, dragging Unit-02 with it into the dark waters.

"Scheiße!" Asuka muttered as she continued to strike against the entangling strands.

01100101 00100000 01100100 01110010 01101001 01101100 01101100 00101110

[Status report!] Cpt Katsuragi yelled. [Shinji! Asuka! Are you OK?]

[We're fine,] Asuka answered. [The electrical attacks seem to have ceased, but the knife doesn't seem to do anything. I burst one of the cores, but that doesn't seem to have stopped it much—Scheiße!]

[Asuka! What happened?] Misato asked.

[The Rakbu is trying to _eat_ me!] Asuka reported. "That's just plain wrong, humans are supposed to eat fish, not the other way around…" she mumbled to Shinji.

Misato bent her back and tapped the side of her head. She had to figure out how to deal with the situation, but the Eva simply didn't have any weapons for underwater combat. Unit-00 was, of course, out of commission for a few more weeks, and it would take at least six hours for zero-one's amphibious equipment to arrive by plane; zero-two's D-type equipment was probably at the bottom of the ocean by now. She was certain the battle would have ended by then, one way or another. _Let's hope for 'another'_ she thought to herself.

There must be something she could do. She chewed lightly on her own lip and wished, for once, that Major Kusanagi was there. On one level, the Major's naysaying and sceptical nature was grating… but on the other hand, whenever she bounced ideas against the woman, she always ended up with something that worked in the end.

But she simply didn't have _time_ for that kind of relentless back-and-forth arguments. She had to think of something quick. She glanced at the vaguely circular map of Midway. _They're installing the hydroelectric dam, but the lagoon is rather shallow – yet shallow enough to drown in,_ she reflected morbidly, _and it can be sealed off…_

"That's it!" she announced to the entire CIC room.

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Ninki, the third Rakbu, burst from the water and sailed through the air. Unit-02 grappled with the thick net of tentacles that trailed from the bell. As the Rakbu arced its spineless back, a glowing point slammed into its abdomen. A white line of smoke traced back a missile frigate that had begun curving back to attack. Another missile slammed into its fin. High-curving missiles streaked down, while lines against the canvas of black smoke that rose into the sky. Plumes of water shot upwards when the missiles missed the Rakbu and sank into the water nearby.

Then Ninki dropped into the water, as if untouched by the blossoming fireballs. Heavy ripples surged outwards, rocking the nearest ships. Another battery of anti-ship missiles plunged into the Rakbu's wake. Each exploded with a muted flash, sending clusters of bubbles to the surface. A school of torpedoes swerved towards Ninki's bell. They were swallowed whole without notice.

A high-pitched giggle penetrated Unit-02's entry plug. Asuka, instinctively, tried to shut her ears with her free arm. The Rakbu's arms dropped their persistent attack and held back. Then Unit-02 was tossed around like a ragdoll in a storm as the Rakbu banked on a turn. For a moment, Asuka was face to face with a bottle-nosed dolphin – it was marked with the Imperial American Navy seal, and carried a sonar rifle in a small turret cybernetically grafted to its back – and then gulped LCL as the dolphin was snatched away by a probing tendril.

More strands snatched out to grab stray members of the pod. Ninki hungrily stuffed its maw with their wriggling bodies, swallowing them whole. A few were savagely sliced by the titanic, diamonoid teeth as the Rakbu snapped after Unit-2.

Suddenly the Rakbu made for land. As it rose from the water, Unit-02 was tumbled like a leaf in the wind. For a moment, Ninki stood on its tail-like appendage – then it slammed down onto the harbour, scraping its abdomen against the concrete. Tendrils shot out, coiling around the screaming forms of terrified men and women as they ran. Another pair of thin arms made for a pool full of smart dolphins. The moment the Rakbu made contact, the dolphins twitched and rolled over, dead from electrocution.

Then Ninki lunged again. With unbelievable strength, it thrust further inland. Its massive bulk slammed belly-first into a wall of oil tanks. One by one, as if they were balloons popping, they spilled their black contents out over the harbour. Partially covered in fuel, the Rakbu rolled into the sea. The flood of oil that poured over the edges of the dock made contact with the burning lines of fire that ran from a nearby sinking helicopter carrier.

An attack boat that had drawn to close made close acquaintance with the Ninki's teeth. The Rakbu shot out of the water, crushing the vessel in its jaws. As it swerved through the air, the flickering flames played upon its transparent skin as sun was, for a moment, blotted from the sky by the thick black walls of smoke that surrounded the leviathan.

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[You want to use us as _bait_?] Asuka asked . [That sounds rather...] She purposefully did not complete the sentence.

[Not as bait, as lure,] Misato explained.

[I fail to see the difference,] Asuka said, trying to mask her extreme scepticism as much as she could manage.

[You're not going to be used as some gigantic fishing hook,] Misato continued the metaphor, [you're just going to lure the Rakbu into the locks. Those gates can sheer a destroyer in half, so with your AT-field there, we should be able to cut it in half.]

[Hmmm,] Asuka said over the cybercom. She looked suspicious, Shinji thought, but she seemed to be seriously considering it. [I'm willing to give it a go. Trying not to be eaten is really_ really_ boring.].

"And frightening," Shinji mumbled.

"Coward," Asuka said as she tossed the Eva around to avoid the approaching jaw of the Rakbu.

[OK, we're good to go on this end,] Misato said after a minute. [The _Zachary Taylor_ has been evacuated and the remote control is coordinated with your tactical net. You should begin moving in about two minutes.]

[We're ready,] Asuka announced.

The Rakbu was more sluggish underwater. It moved faster than on land, certainly, but Asuka found the tendrils easier to dodge. It was also easier to control Unit 02 when her arm didn't feel like it was trying to break itself apart.

But it was not a winning prospect. It was just dodging until one of them got tired and made a mistake. It was almost a welcome change when the Eva was pulled taut between the umbilical cord and the constricting tendrils of the Rakbu. Asuka smirked as she saw the Rakbu flop its immense fins to pursue, instead of holding her back. _You're going to be a good stupid little alien, aren't you?_ she thought. _You're going to be so occupied with trying to reverse the evolutionary chain that you're not going to nice you're being lured into a trap._

Asuka and Shinji waited in silence. In the Eva's peripheral vision, they could see an overlay counting down towards their destination. Once the meter reached the lower hundreds of meters, Asuka let go a thankful breath.

And then Ninki, the third Rakbu, struck. It rushed forwards. Before Asuka had even noticed its movement, its diamond-like teeth dug deep into Unit 02's armour. Pain shot through Asuka as her mind scrambled to get a grip on the situation.

_Scheiße! Scheiße! Scheiße!_ she thought.

[What's going on?] Misato yelled. [Asuka, Shinji, report!]

[The Rakbu bit us!] Shinji reported. [I think it's trying to maul the Eva, and oh my chest hurts so bad…]

"Abort the mission! Abort the mission!" Misato yelled to the CIC. "The target is dangerously close to friendly personnel. We can't risk it."

The jellyfish-like head of the Ninki broke the water first, glittering like broken glass covered in blood against the sun. Then the dark green, half-limp body of Unit 02 followed in its jaws. Shinji supressed the urge to vomit as the Eva was shook like a half-dead fish in a hammerhead shark's jaws. As the panoramic screen lagged, he could see snapshots of the aircraft carrier's approaching bow.

[Misato!] Asuka yelled.

[I'm sorry Asuka, I thought it was going to work, I…] the captain apologized.

[Forget about that! The aircraft carrier!] Asuka yelled as she was tossed back and forth in the entry plug.

[What about it?] Misato asked.

[Full starboard and full speed! Then open the inner gates!] Asuka said.

[What's that supposed to do…] Cpt. Katsuragi said, trailing off on the last words. [My god, Asuka, you're a genius!]

[I know!] she yelled back. [But you can shower me in well-deserved praised_ later_. Just open the inner gates!]

"Do as she says." Cpt. Katsuragi commanded.

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Shinji watched, wide-eyed, as the bow of the _Zachary Taylor_ approached. If his tactical map was any indication, the aircraft carrier was almost too big for the pound of the lock. He could see no reason, whatsoever, for why Asuka had wanted them both rammed by a supercarrier. Perhaps Rei was not the only female Eva-pilot who was not quite normal, mentally speaking? Yet Misato had agreed to the plan; it had to have some merit, yet all he could conclude was that all of NERV's female staff was all insane. Ritsuko, after all, looked a bit like a mad scientist.

He looked at Asuka. Her face was filled with glee and exaltation. Her eyes were completely focused on the aircraft carrier. He was pretty certain she'd stopped blinking a little while ago. He was about to be die inside a mechanical giant, crushed to a pulp between a leviathan and a monster of a ship. The symbolism was somewhat poetically peculiar, but offered little solace when the ploughing bow of the ship filled the entire panoramic screen.

The _Zachary Taylor_ crashed into Ninki. There was a tortured whine as the nuclear-powered engines of the supercarrier pushed the Rakbu, stressing the steel superstructure. For a moment, it looked like a wrestling-match between giants – and then the Rakbu yielded. It was slammed into the walls of the pound. With a terrible, gut-wrenching sound of flesh scraped against rough concrete, it was shoved towards the inner gate of the lock.

Unit-02 fared worse than Asuka had hoped. Its left arm had been caught between the Rakbu and the wall, and the armour plates had been torn off like a worn sleeve. The pain was intense. She struggled to keep her Eva from getting caught again, manoeuvring against the turbulent and treacherous currents.

Then, at last, they all came to a stop. Almost perpendicular to the walls, the supercarrier had pinned the Rakbu against the pound. The umbrella-shaped, head-like part of the Rakbu twisted and tossed, dragging Unit-02 with it. Ninki could not move away, its left fin crushed by the impact. The supercarrier slipped and slid, crashing into the subumbrella of the Rakbu's bell – yet it still had the Rakbu pinned.

"Hey, Third Child," Asuka said, after she had taken a deep breath, "you scream like a nine-year-old girl."

Before Shinji could answer that, the logs from the entry plug to the contrary, he did not, Asuka was already back in command of the situation.

[Now Misato!] she yelled over the cybercom, [close the inner gates!]

There was a deep, clunking hollow sound. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing was going to happen, and that Unit-02 was just drifting lazily about in the atoll basin. Then the Rakbu shuddered, and there was a sound of metal scraping against metal. The sliding gates of the inner lock were bucking against the hull of the _Zachary Taylor_, quivering under the hydraulic forces that tried to squeeze them shut.

And then they closed fully. The bow of the supercarrier was sheared straight off. It fell slowly into the azure lagoon water, giving Asuka a clear view of the forward flight deck as it drifted past. When it struck the ground, a thick cloud of grime and mud was whirled upwards. Unit-02 was blinded, and Asuka could only tell that the Rakbu had been decapitated because Unit-02 was dragged down with it. The lights in the entry plug dimmed, and the battery timer started counting down from five minutes.

"Now that," Asuka said, "Third Child, is how you kill a Rakbu."

She turned to Shinji and smiled.

"Do you think NERV will let me keep it as a trophy?" she said, "You know, to mount on the wall?"

"The current housing market will make that somewhat impractical," Shinji retorted.

"Now you're sounding like Dan," Asuka muttered. "There might be a patch of Sahara that's dryer than that joke, but I doubt it."

_Worse, I sound like my father,_ Shinji thought, _…if my father ever cracked jokes._

"I just want the head," Asuka said jovially, "Dr Akagi can have the body for her research."

Asuka's eyes glazed over for a split second as she used her cyberbrain. Four large spotlights of blinding strength peered down into the shallow basin and panned over the lakebed.

"Let's see what my prize looks like…" she said.

She quickly found the grime-covered, decapitated head of the third Rakbu. The tendrils were sprawled around the bell, and the jaw lay dumbly half-gaping against the ground. Then she caught one of the tentacles twitch.

"Did you also see that?" she asked Shinji.

"Yes," he answered gravely.

[Misato, emergency,] Asuka reported over the cybercom as she made Unit-02 step cautiously away, [the Rakbu isn't dead.]

Slowly, laboriously, yet without pause, the Rakbu's head began to crawl along the surface of the artificial lake. Its tentacles retracted and pushed against the ground, until the umbrella-like bell floating against the surface. The jaw and head hung from its centre, motionless, yet also glowing with a powerful crimson shade that could penetrate even the thick layer of mud on the Rakbu's skin.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. Where it had been, there was only a cloud of mud and grime, falling slowly to the bottom of the basin.

"Where did it go?" Shinji asked, his voice wavering.

"I don't know!" Asuka snapped, "The sensors are confused by the mud-clouds."

She twisted the Eva around. She caught the Rakbu, for a moment, and then all she could see was another cloud of mud.

"_Scheiße! Ich sehe nur Scheiße!_" Asuka said, anger once again the main component of her voice.

[What's happening Asuka?], Cpt Katsuragi asked. [Tell me what's going on!]

[_Ich meinte 'Schlamm'!_] Asuka yelled. Unit-02 stumbled, as an invisible tentacle whacked its head.

[Um, I mean,] Asuka said as she tried to get her Eva back onto stable footing, [I can't see the Rakbu because it keeps whirling up mud.]

Once more, she caught a glimpse of her prize, and once more, by the time she had started to swim in its direction, it was gone, replaced with an empty cloud of grime. Suddenly, as the cloud cleared, she could feel something tighten against her neck. Her face went pale. Almost at a reflex, she started to tear at her plug suit – then she caught Shinji, in the corner of her eye, grasping at his own throat, as if he'd choked on something.

_It's just the feedback_, she realized, _thank God!_

She twisted the Eva around, sluggishly. Then the grip around her neck tightened, and Unit-02 plummeted face-down into the ground. Despite the immense force behind the throw, the Eva still fell painfully slowly, and the anticipation only worsened the fear.

Then another tendril struck, crushing an armour plate in the Eva's torso. Asuka inhaled sharply.

[It's too fast!] she shouted, as she tried to get her Eva to stand up. [It's so much faster now.]

She caught another glimpse of it, and narrowly dodged a tendril aimed at her eye. She could see the tendril moving, slowly, in the water, as she tossed the Eva into a spin to avoid it. And she could see the near-invisible strand shoot past her, as her spotlights danced over it. But her knife-hand was agonizingly slow. By the time she'd brought it up to strike, the tentacle was long gone, and the Rakbu had disappeared behind a cloud of slowly-falling mud.

[I simply can't keep up with it!] she reported, yet Shinji could see in her face she wouldn't let the impossibility of the situation stop her from trying; she moved the knife close to the torso, trading range for reaction-time.

"Damnit!" she shouted. "It's not fair that we have to fight the Rakbu in its ideal habitat."

"…wait," Asuka bit her lower lip. "Shinji, this is a hydroelectric dam, isn't it?"

"Uh…" Shinji said. "I think so? It's more like a lake though—watchoutforthatarm!"

A tendril narrow missed coiling around Unit-02's legs. Asuka struck down, the knife's path painfully slow – but just fast enough to peel off a strip of the transparent membrane.

"I saw it, idiot!" Asuka shouted, then she smiled. "Gotcha!" she whispered.

[Misato!] she transmitted. [Can you open the sluices on the dam?]

[The sluices?] the captain asked.

[Yes, without all this water, I'll be faster,] Asuka explained [and the Rakbu won't be able to hide in the mud clouds.]

There were a few moments of silence. Asuka dodged another entangling tentacle.

[Yes,] Misato answered. [Yes, we can drain the basin.]

Asuka took a deep breath and shot a glance at the battery time. She had just a little over three minutes left. Then she heard a ghostly sound, and the mud-clouds started drifting, slowly, away from the field of battle. The ghostly wail turned to a slurping, and she could actually see the surface of the lake approach.

But the battle, still, was not won.

When the water-level reached Unit-02's neck, the water had cleared enough for her to see the Rakbu. It was floating near the surface of the water – she found a jellyfish comparison apt- bobbing with the troubled waves the draining made.

And then it rained attacks on her from above. Half a dozen tendrils swung at the Eva's head, impossibly fast, like snapping cables. She threw herself to the side – one tendril, painfully electrified, broke the shoulder of the Eva's useless arm. It was, she knew, an insignificant hit. Yet, she could not deny, it was extremely painful.

She barely had time to grit her teeth before the second overhead barrage came. This time, she ducked beneath the waves and pulled back. The thick, transparent cables plunged into the water, where she'd been just been standing – and just where she'd predicted they'd hit. They sunk deep, far deeper than the Rakbu, had it had her magnificent intelligence, should have let them.

Her knife shot out. Of the six tentacles that had struck at Unit-02, two came back at half the length.

Unit 02 circled around the Rakbu. Asuka had learned it's reach now, and she knew where it was. With every second that passed, she reasoned, her advantages grew. _Let it attack_, she told herself, as the water-level passed just underneath Unit-02's shoulders. Yet, she also remembered, it was also advantageous to control an engagement.

She swung Unit-02's left side forward, shielding herself with the bad arm. She held the knife back. The Rakbu took the bait. A throng of tendrils lashed out at her from all directions – and she made Unit-02 step back, out of their range. Then she raised her knife above water, and with newfound speed and reaction-times, she hacked hard at a pair of clustered arms.

There was an unearthly, high-pitched scream, like a mockery of the smart dolphin's giggles, echoing between the tall concrete walls of the dam. As the sound bounced back and forth against the semi-parabolic curves of the coral reef, the warped howl continued for nearly a minute as the battle continued.

With the water at her mid-torso, Asuka tried another faint. She jumped forwards again, and waited for the attack from above. It never came. Instead, she could feel a powerful electric sting in her foot. The pain shot up her leg, and she felt the Eva twitch and buckle under the shock. She could hear Shinji whimper from behind her seat. Maybe bringing him hadn't been so safe after-all.

She slashed at the constricting tendrils. The Rakbu seemed overly cautious, she realized. Perhaps its magnificent alien intelligence was nothing against her own – or perhaps it was holding back for a reason?

She eyed it as she kept her distance. It was vaguely jellyfish shaped, if jellyfish were wide across the bell than Unit-02 was tall, and liked to eat dolphins whole. The water-level had reached her mid-torso, and she could see now that it had lost the head and jaw – thin membranous patches of skin, like a curtain ripped savagely by a cat, hung from its centre. And the centre was glowing red.

"Shinji," she called, "that red thing, is that what a core is supposed to look like?"

"Um… Yeah!" Shinji shouted. "That's exactly what a core looks like."

She stared at the pulsating, blood-red sphere that was coiled up, covered in what looked almost like transparent intestines or nerves, against the umbrella-like shape. She considered her chances; she had one arm, it still had at least a hundred. She was, at best, wading in a pool the size of Hamburg, and the Rakbu seemed optimally suited for an amphibious engagement, to speak nothing of its natural weapons.

But a tiny voice in her head reminded her, she was Asuka Langely Soryu. She was the _best_ at what she did, no matter what it was, and right now she was piloting Unit-02, the best Eva-unit ever built. This made her, essentially, one of the greatest people alive on Earth. She had doubted, occasionally, her own ability, until recently.

Then she had met the other contender for the title, and right now that boy was huddled up next to her, jumping like a scared cat every time the Rakbu lashed out at her.

Suddenly, she felt certain in her victory.

She rushed forwards, as fast as she could. It was, technically, wading. It certainly felt like wading, Asuka thought. The hydro-jets had stopped working once the water-level had dropped below the Eva's torso. She now had to push forward, waist deep in water, a two-hundred meter stretch. Now that was trying to move so much so fast again, she suddenly felt sluggish again.

The arduous task was further complicated by the net of tendrils the Rakbu tossed up against her. They lashed out at her, relentlessly. She caught a pair in the hook of Unit-02's arm and pulled hard. The carpet-like web of tendrils suddenly untangled, as the Rakbu tried to reorganize itself – then she cut them off with the knife, and let go. The hundred-legged leviathan stumbled.

Unit-02 pushed on. Asuka had to dodge steadily more tentacles as she closed in, and she eyed the battery-timer. It had dropped faster than it should. And the third Rakbu, perhaps a little more intelligent than she had acknowledged at first, was retreating on its spindly legs. It was slower, true, but if she ran out of power, she would become fish-food.

[Asuka, Shinji] a voice rang in her cochlear implants, [Stay back. We're transferring an umbilical cord to the dam. If you can pull back to the south-western docks, you can plug in there. I don't want you to get into a fight with just a minute of power left.]

[Sorry Misato,] Asuka replied [But with all the water, Unit-02 can't make it that far on just a hundred-and-twenty seconds of battery. I'm going to finish this now.]

[No,] the captain said sternly. [I'm explicitly forbidding you from engaging the third Rakbu. Pull back. I'll get a helicopter to hand you your end of the umbilical cord.]

"Hmpf," Asuka said, "I am _not_stupid," she mumbled, "I know my limits, and taking down that Rakbu is well within them."

"I wouldn't get into a fight with Misato over it," Shinji said, "she got really angry at me when I disobeyed during training once."

"That's probably because you're not all that good at independent judgement and self-control," Asuka said.

A tendril struck at Unit-02. She easily dodged it and flayed off a strip of membranous skin.

"Huh. It seems to be lowering its defence…" Asuka noted. "But orders are orders…"

She frowned at the panoramic screen and took a few cautious steps backwards.

"Wait," Shinji said, "Did you just call me an idiot?"

"…it took you that long to notice?" Asuka taunted him. "Idiot," she muttered under her breath.

"I heard that!" Shinji said.

Then Ninki struck. The end of a tentacle suddenly rose from behind the Eva, a trap laid long before it had come that far. While the proximity claxons still screamed in Asuka's head, the tendril wrapped around the limp arm of Unit-02. Powerful electric shocks rocked the Eva.

[Asu-ksssssss] a corrupted video-conference icon appeared in the Eva's peripheral vision. [Wh-oing on? Re-kssssssssss!]

Asuka screamed in anger and pain. Shinji just screamed in pain. Suddenly, the Rakbu was upon them. A torrent of lashes beat against the armour plates. Tendrils wrapped themselves around Unit-02's arms and legs. The remaining eye, and the core, glowed in menacing shades of pulsating crimson. A pair of tendrils entangled the Eva's head, covering one of the eyes and darkening a third of the entry plug. Shinji felt as if his head was about to pop.

"It's going to coil up on us and explode!" he yelled. "It's going to kill us all!"

Asuka reached her Eva's arm, still holding the knife, up against the outer edge of the suumbrellal surface, where the tendrils joined with the bell. In too much pain to concentrate, her own body mimed the motion. She had problems breathing, and her heart felt as if it was about to explode. She got a strange, charred taste in her mouth. But she still reached out. She pinned the knife between Unit-02's thumb and index finger.

She grabbed the root of a tentacle and pulled hard. The electric shocks that racked the Eva ceased, for a moment. Asuka used the momentary pause to twist the tendril halfway over her shoulder. The Rakbu, most of its arms coiled around Unit-02 like an octopus prying open a clam, overbalanced and fell. Shinji tumbled around in the entry plug as Unit-02 rolled on top of the soft, squishy underside of the Rakbu.

Asuka started stabbing. Through the panicked electric shocks, she relentlessly and unstoppably stabbed at the luminescent red core and the tendrils that covered it. A dozen arms flopped off as she brought the knife, aided by Unit-02's AT Field, against the Rakbu. She could feel, instinctively, Ninki's AT field shift and pulse as she thrust against it. She could feel it tear and rupture, as the knife made contact with the glass-like shell of the core.

The core shattered, and popped. A red mist of qualia was carried off by the wind. The bag-like umbrella-shape of the Rakbu started leaking into what little remained of water in the basin.

Asuka took several deep breaths. Then the entry plug turned over to emergency lighting, and Unit-02 collapsed.

01100101 00100000 01100100 01110010 01101001 01101100 01101100 00101110

**Esgilia Academy, Kobe, Japan, 7 OCT 2030**  
Toji tipped his chair on its rear legs, marking nasty marks in the floor of the Esagila Academy's classrooms. His feet were resting on a nearby desk – notably not his own – and he was back in his rebellious interpretation of the school uniform, his usual attire of the gym uniform at all times. He turned to Shinji.

"So…" he said, "how much would you be willing to pay me and Kensuke here to not show pictures of you in the female Eva-suit to the female students of the class?"

Shinji's faced paled.

"Or the male student body, for that matter," Toji continued, "that'll be twice the price, for both, of course."

"You…" Shinji began, "you wouldn't really...?"

Toji grinned. Kensuke snickered.

"Nah, of course not!" Toji said, with a huge smile upon his face. "We're you're friends. We wouldn't bully you. Unlike certain red-haired German she-devils," he added.

"She's not all that bad…" Shinji muttered.

"See?" Toji said, "she has you under her spell already!"

"Knock it off!" Shinji mumbled.

"She's actually a witch from a German witch coven, and she's bewitched you with a magic potion!" Toji said, purposefully melodramatic. "Did you drink anything she offered you? Did you keep an eye on your drink at all times?"

Shinji rolled his eyes.

"Or maybe she's actually a criminal superhacker;" Toji continued, "a puppet master who has ghost-hacked you into just _thinking_ she's a sweet girl!"

"I never said she was sweet!" Shinji protested.

"Or maybe she's a vampire," Toji hung his hands forward like a stereotypical movie vampire, "who's after your blood and is infiltrating the student body… to…" he slowed down as he caught a glimpse of long red hair atop a smiling face of a somewhat unusually pale skin-colour.

"No, it can't be!" Toji shouted as he pointed at Asuka "The rude German man-eating red-head!"

"Toji!" Hikari's voice reverberated through the room, "How _dare_ you call your new classmate—" Hikari waved a hand in the direction of Asuka's brand new school uniform, "—a 'man-eater'. Or 'rude', for that matter. Show some respect, for once. And sit properly."

Toji leant back and stared into the ceiling. The next weeks of school would be murderous.


End file.
